Planned Parenthood
by ICanStopAnytime
Summary: What better time for Julie to announce her pregnancy than when Coach Taylor has a mouthful of wine and is sitting three inches from a carving knife? An FNL fanfic featuring Matt, Julie, Coach Eric Taylor, Tami Taylor, Aunt Shelley, Gracie, and Landry Clarke.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:** This contains more cutting room floor pieces from a removed novel weaved into a newish story. Enjoy.

**PLANNED PARENTHOOD**

**CHAPTER ONE**

The aroma from the turkey filled the Taylors' spacious dining room. Braemore had set them up "college style," as Tami liked to say, but what his and hers closets and separate dining rooms and kitchen nooks had to do with college, Coach Taylor did not know. He did, however, appreciate the basement, which Tami had allowed him for a man cave, and he'd spent a lot of time down there yesterday, because Shelley had arrived a full day before Thanksgiving. He'd only emerged when Julie and Matt came through the front door later that same evening.

The china plates lay empty before the family members, and they were making the traditional pre-meal rounds, wherein everyone was compelled to announce publically an object of his or her gratitude. Gracie said, "I'm thankful I get two pieces of pie for desert!"

"I said no to that, Gracie," Tami reminded her.

"I'm thankful mommy's going to change her mind," Gracie insisted.

Tami sighed. "Well, I'm grateful for my family, all of y'all, and I'm especially grateful that my dutiful daughter Gracie knows that no means no."

Shelley was grateful for her new job in Baltimore. "Now I'm just a short drive from my sister and brother-in-law." She beamed at Eric, who smiled thinly before expressing his gratitude that the Pioneers had made it to the play-offs this season.

Matt said, "I'm grateful I sold those two sculptures so we can afford a down payment on our condo."

Everyone now turned to look at Julie. Eric raised his wine glass as his daughter began to speak. "Well," she said, "what I'm really most thankful for" – Eric brought the glass to his lips "at the moment is" – he began to sip "the fact that Matt and I are going to have a baby."

Shelley laughed as the red liquid spewed out onto Eric's empty plate.

[***]

"What the _hell_ were they thinking?" Eric asked his wife as they lay in bed later that night. Immediately after the announcement, Aunt Shelley had poured forth effusive congratulations to her niece, and Tami had smiled and said, "That's great, you two," even though it was quite clear to her husband that she did not for a moment think it was "great."

Coach Taylor had said nothing at all. Instead he had risen and plucked up his wine-coated plate and taken it to the kitchen to wash it off. When he returned, he picked up the carving knife and began violently shredding the turkey. Tami had gone into instant motion, starting the side dishes around the table and making sure the conversation was flowing on other subjects entirely.

"I don't know, hon." Tami was sitting back against the headboard, next to her husband, who was staring dumbly ahead with his arms crossed over his white t-shirt.

"Did they forget to use birth control?"

"We talked while we were doing the dishes," Tami said. "She said it was planned."

"Planned? They planned to have a kid before she finished college? Before she has a full-time job? On just his income?"

Tami shook her head. She didn't precisely disagree with her husband, but she also wanted him to calm down and accept what was happening. The decision had been made; there was nothing they could do about it, and when Julie left Saturday morning, Tami didn't want her to leave with the impression that her father thought she was doing a horrible thing. "He's making as much as you were at his age, hon. And she'll have her degree by the time that baby is born. She's almost done. And we…we were about the same age when we had Julie."

"Yeah, and you remember how hard that was? Me having to work those two jobs for a while, hardly seeing each other - "

"I know. But we pulled through. And we're still here together. In our four-bedroom house, babe. With a savings account and two relatively new cars and a pretty decent marriage I might add."

He rubbed his eyes. "This can't be happening," he said.

"It's happening. And when you see her tomorrow, you need to let her know you love and support her."

"Of course I love her!"

"_And_ support her."

"Okay. Okay. Can we have sex?"

"What!" She laughed in disbelief. "That's a bit abrupt, hon. You're not going to do your usual first and tell me what wonderful wife, friend, mother, and lover I am? Then hint for a little while? And only _then_ muster up the nerve to ask?"

"This has me so stressed out, babe." He turned to her. "There is no way I am going to be able to relax unless we have sex. Besides, I'm going to be a grandpa soon. We need to enjoy this before we get too old."

She slid over next to him and put a hand on his chest. He looked at her with more weariness and frustration than desire. He _did_ need to relax, and _how_. At least he was willing to _try_ to unwind, and she really couldn't argue with him that sex would be an aid to that process. "I could use a little distraction and stress relief myself," she said, and then she reached over him and turned off the light.

In the darkness they found each other and undressed one another effortlessly. His hands moved slowly and confidently, her body as familiar to him as his own. The tension in his muscles began to uncoil as she worked her magic with feathery touches that caressed and teased. He found the places he knew delighted her most, sought them with his hands and mouth and tongue. He judged wordlessly the moment she was ready for him, and when he was in her she let out a soft moan of welcome, but he did not yet move. "I love you," he whispered. "You're an incredible wife, friend, mother, and lover."

She laughed lightly. "You know I already said yes, right? You know where you already are?"

"I know." She couldn't see his eyes clearly in the thin film of moon and starlight that seeped through the blinds of the window, but she heard the sincerity in his voice. "But it's true. All of it. It's all true, and it's worth saying." His lips claimed hers and they moved in concert, fears for their daughter and all other concerns temporarily banished from their minds.


	2. Chapter 2

**CHAPTER TWO**

Despite the sex, Eric couldn't sleep. He was certainly less tense than he had been an hour ago, but his mind simply would not shut off. He slipped out of bed, slowly sliding his body out from under Tami's arm and leg so he wouldn't wake her, pulled on his clothes quietly, and went to the kitchen for a glass of water. The house was quiet and he assumed everyone was asleep, though a single light remained on in the living room. He glanced out the window as he filled his empty glass from the kitchen faucet and saw Shelley and Matt sitting in the rocking chairs on the back porch. They were smoking cigars. Shelley had apparently picked up that habit, along with a new tattoo, from her last boyfriend. It didn't seem to suit her personality, the cigar smoking, except that it mildly and inexplicably irritated Eric to see her do it, so it was at least consistent in that sense.

Eric grabbed his coat, threw on his socks and shoes, and headed outside to join them. He didn't know what he wanted to say to his son-in-law, but he felt he ought to say something. After the announcement, Coach Taylor had avoided speaking to Matt for the duration of the Thanksgiving evening, other than to comment on the football game, and even those exchanges had been incredibly terse.

"Well I like Thomas Kinkade," Shelley was saying. "I don't care what you think. I have one of his paintings, and it's gorgeous. So many pretty colors."

"Painter of light," Matt said in a sarcastically high voice. Then, in his normal tone, "It's so incredibly shallow."

"Well I'm shallow," Shelley replied with a titter. "So no wonder I like it. The world is ugly. Why shouldn't we at least make things beautiful on the surface if we can? I totally don't get realism. Who wants reality? Give me some pretty colors to look at and a shape I can identify."

The pair stopped their conversation and glanced at Eric as he leaned back against the porch railing, downwind from the smoke.

"Did you know this is Matt's first ever cigar?" Shelley asked.

Eric shook his head.

"I'm making him a man tonight." Shelley laughed with a bright smile and slapped Matt's knee. "Well, I guess he already is one. He's totally going to be a dad!"

Eric crossed his arms over his chest. It was cold.

"I'd offer you a cigar," Shelley told Eric with a smirk, "but I know you don't want to set a bad example for your son-in-law."

Matt chuckled.

Eric tucked his hands beneath his armpits. How could they stand to hold anything in their bare hands out here?

Shelley poked Matt as though to urge him to speak. The young man looked at his cigar and not his father-in-law, but he nonetheless ventured, "You haven't said congratulations, Coach."

"Congratulations?" Coach Taylor asked, leaning forward slightly. "You want me to say congratulations? It's not like winning a state ring, Matt. You don't get a cheer from the stands and then just get to wear it around for the next few years, showing it off."

Matt coughed, either at the words or because he had inhaled the smoke from the cigar instead of blowing it out. Eric wasn't sure which.

Shelley blew her smoke to the left of her chair into the bushes at the side of the house. "Nice pep talk, Eric."

"Well it's true," Eric insisted. "Son, let me tell you what it's like. You won't ever again be able to make a decision that doesn't take your kid into account. You're no longer free. It isn't just about you and your wife anymore. You'll experience joy, yes, and a new kind of love, but you also experience disappointments you never thought you could endure. You'll realize the extent of your own flaws because kids just…bring that stuff out…make that obvious to you."

"Another great motivational speech, Eric," Shelley said dryly. "Why don't you jot that one down?"

Eric ignored her and continued, "You'll mess up. You'll say you're sorry, and then you'll try harder, and then you'll mess up again. You'll go to bed and then you'll wake up and you'll do it all over again. Again and again and again for years and years and years. You ready for that, Matt? Did you even think about whether or not you were ready for that before you got my daughter pregnant?"

Matt wetted his lips with his tongue. He hadn't taken a puff on his cigar since the speech had begun. Eric was pretty sure he had cowed the kid into silence when Matt surprised him by saying, "I don't know, sir. Did you think about whether or not you were ready for that before you fathered my wife?"

Eric clenched his teeth. Shelley threw back her head and laughed, her white teeth glistening beneath the porch light. "Oh that's good, Eric," she said. "You have to admit that's a good one. I mean, you guys were what? Two years older? Three?" Eric shook his head ever so slightly, in a way that showed to anyone who knew him how irritated he was.

"Look, Coach…"

"You never call him Dad?" Shelley interrupted. "I mean, he's your father-in-law."

Matt and Eric looked at one another and then looked back at Shelley. Shelley threw up a hand. "Forget I said it."

"Anyway, Coach," Matt continued, "I know it isn't going to be easy, but I have a decent job and I'm getting regular promotions. Julie will be done with her degree before the baby's born. We've thought about this. It's what we want. I know you don't like it, but you know what?" Matt was raising his eyes to his father-in-law's. Eric could tell he was mustering up his courage. The young man usually avoided straight-on eye contact. When he made it directly like this, it meant he was going to say something he was afraid, but just ticked off enough, to say. "It's not your decision. I know you don't like it," he repeated, "but then again you didn't like me marrying your daughter in the first place. You don't really like _me_."

Shelley shifted in her chair and quickly stubbed out her cigar. She stood up, opened her eyes wide at Eric, and then stepped over Matt's legs to disappear inside.


	3. Chapter 3

**CHAPTER THREE**

After Shelley had shut the door, Eric said, "That's not true, son, you know that's not true."

Matt gave up on his cigar and stubbed it out. He looked down at the wood planks of the porch as his father-in-law continued, "I've always liked you. Hell, you were like a son to me before you were my son-in-law." Matt ventured to raise his eyes a little. "You know I defended you to my wife when you first started dating Julie. You know that?"

Matt shook his head. It was clear he didn't believe it.

"I did. I said, hey, Tami, at least he's a good kid. At least she's picked a decent kid to date. At least it isn't one of the Riggins brothers."

Matt laughed hesitantly.

Coach Taylor came and sat next to him in the chair Shelley had vacated. "I didn't want Julie to get married so young, but it wasn't _you_ I didn't like. It was the timing." At least she hadn't gone and married the Swede. Or that nomadic, pretentious Habitat for Humanity guy. Or an adulterous, divorced T.A. At least she'd settled on the decent guy after she was done sowing her wild oats, just as her sensible mother had done. At least she'd picked a young man with guts and a conscience, and at least Matt hadn't knocked her up _before_ he proposed.

"Timing?" Matt asked. "That's not exactly how you made it sound when you said your answer would be no until the sun burned out."

"Well, you took me by surprise." Coach Taylor rocked for a while and didn't say anything. "It was an extremely stressful time for me. I was getting ready for State, I was about to maybe lose the Lions, my was wife asking me to make this major life change, because marriage is like that sometimes, it's hard, you disagree, you have to give up things that are really important to you to make it work, or you have to ask the other person to give up things they really care about and feel guilty watching them make that sacrifice for you…and then you come in on top of all that and suggest marrying my eighteen-year-old daughter? Who at that particular time didn't seem to have it in her to think about anyone other than herself ? You have to understand. Julie had not long ago been doing things that - " He glanced at Matt. He didn't know how much Julie had told him, and he wasn't going to cause a fight there if she hadn't come clean with him about all that "- just tend to make a father think she's wasn't all that ready for the responsibility and compromise marriage entails." It was a major understatement, but Coach Taylor wasn't about to mention his daughter's affair with a married man. "And, son, I didn't even really know y'all were back together. So that was something I did not anticipate in the least. And y'all were young – y'all are _still_ young – and I just couldn't believe you were throwing that at me at that moment. Maybe I overreacted."

Coach Taylor studied Matt, who had shoved his hands deep into his coat pockets and was examining the porch.

"That's an apology, son."

"Oh," Matt said, glancing up at him slightly. "Okay."

"Listen, I like you, Matt. I've always liked you." Well, maybe not so much that time he'd sat up with Tami waiting for his fifteen-year-old girl to come home from some cabin where she might be losing her virginity. Maybe not so much when he caught Matt in bed with his daughter, or that time he'd picked the kid up drunk from the hospital, but a lot of the time. Most of the time. "The truth is, you kind of remind me of myself at your age."

It was obvious to Eric that Matt was trying not to laugh at the thought.

"You do," Eric insisted. "I was very much like you as a teenager. Angry with my father. Shy with girls. Determined to do the right thing, but pissed off that nice guys always seemed to finish last. Determined to be a man. Responsible but seriously overstretched. An inch from snapping. Running from home to figure things out. Eager to marry the girl I loved so I could make her mine before she got away a second time."

Matt didn't look like he was about to laugh anymore.

Eric leaned a hand against the arm of his chair and sighed. "I don't dislike you, Matt. And I don't distrust you. I've worked with a lot of young men over the years. A _lot_. And you're among the finest. Of all the kids your age I've known, if I could've handpicked one of y'all to marry my daughter…well, it would have been you. I can't think of any other kid I've coached, or any other boy Julie's brought home, that I'd rather see her with. My problem isn't with you, Matt. I just wish Julie had grown up more before making that commitment. And you too. Even though you're more mature than most kids you're age, you're still _young_. I remember how hard it was…and I just wish y'all had waited longer. Waited longer to get married. Then waited longer to have kids. You just want your kids to make smarter choices than you did."

Matt shook his head. His lips fell open slightly. "So…what…you regret marrying Mrs. Coach? You regret having Julie?"

"No. Hell, no! I didn't say that."

"Then what? What do you mean smarter choices?"

"It just…it wasn't easy," Eric said. "Maybe if I'd of been more mature…maybe some things…would have been easier. Maybe I wouldn't have made so many mistakes as a husband and a father."

"You're a great dad," Matt insisted. "Julie says so all the time."

"She does?"

"And you and Mrs. Coach have a great marriage. I mean, look how long you've been married and you're still…" Matt looked away, clearly embarrassed. "In love," he muttered. He turned back to his father-in-law. "Julie and I just want what you guys have. We want that family. And we know it's going to be hard work. We do. But we don't want to put it off just because it's work."

Coach Taylor sighed heavily. "Listen, son. I know you don't owe me an explanation for why you decided to have a kid so soon, but…I worry. Because I'm a dad, like you're going to be. So I worry, like you're going to worry. So…extend me the courtesy of telling me your reasoning. I'm listening."

Matt swallowed. "Julie's got a great part-time work-from-home opportunity right now, writing grant proposals for some artists I know, so she can do that for a few years and then go into her full-time career later with all that experience. My grandma can have a chance to be a great-grandma before she…" his voice got quiet "…dies." His voice returned to its normal volume. "We also really want to be young parents. We want to have a lot of energy for the kids. I want to make sure I'm around for them for a long time, because I know…what it's like to lose your dad when you're just learning to be a man. We also want to be young enough to still do stuff when they leave home."

Eric would qualify for senior citizen discounts when Gracie graduated from high school. He couldn't say the idea thrilled him, but 56 seemed a hell of a lot younger to him now than it had twenty years ago. He was pretty sure he and Tami would still be able to _do stuff_. "Kids?" he asked. "In the plural?"

"We want three. Two years apart."

Coach Taylor laughed. "Well you've got it all planned out, don't you? You realize God's plans might not coincide with yours, right?"

"Yeah. We know. We'll adapt."

Eric heard the door open and thought Shelley had dared to rejoin them, but it was Julie who came out. "What are you guys doing out here?" she asked, drawing her arms into her sweatshirt. She was in slipper socks, without shoes.

Matt stood up and let her have his chair. "Just talking," he said. "You should get back to sleep. Get your rest."

"I'm pregnant, Matt. I'm not an invalid."

She sat down Indian style in the rocking chair. No, Eric corrected himself, she was sitting "criss-cross applesauce." That's what Gracie had been taught in school to call it. Indian style was politically incorrect. That wasn't how Indian's sat, apparently. That was how applesauce sat. Julie had preferred to sit like that ever since she was a little girl. They'd had to train her not to do it at the dinner table, to put her legs down and sit up straight.

"I was just telling your husband," Eric said, reaching out a hand and placing it lightly on his daughter's shoulder, "Congratulations. So let me tell you too, Julie. Congratulations." She smiled. She had a sweet smile, he thought, like a little girl still. Even though she wasn't anymore. He swallowed.

"Are you ready to be a grandpa?" she asked.

"Oh, yeah," he said. "I'm ready to spoil my grandchild rotten, and then send 'em right on home to you. I'm gonna enjoy this." He stood up and asked, "You too old to give your daddy a hug?"

"Never," she said and rose and put her arms around him.

He held her for a minute and whispered, "I love you, Monkey Noodle. Your momma and I are here if you ever need help in any of this. You know that, right?"

"I know. I know, Dad. I know." She kissed his cheek. "I love you too."

He let go of her, nodded to his son-in-law, and slipped through the door, leaving the parents-to-be alone on the porch.


	4. Chapter 4

**CHAPTER FOUR**

Eric left the kids alone on the porch and passed back through the house toward the bedroom. He came to a dead stop in the living room behind the Taylors' new dark brown leather couch where Shelley sat with her legs up on the coffee table. The entire living room was home to new furniture, to save the trouble of moving the old and because they hadn't upgraded in years. The only remnant of the old was Eric's recliner, which he had insisted on moving, because it had, in his opinion, been broken in to the point of comfort and not of wear. The recliner didn't at all suit the new arrangement, but Tami had decided that was not a fight worth fighting. After all, marriage required _compromise_.

Dumbfounded, Coach Taylor stared at the flat TV screen, another new purchase, since they'd given their old TV to a Dillon neighbor. "Are you really watchin' porn? _Right_ in the middle of my living room? With Gracie just down the - "

"- Oh, Jesus, Eric. It's not porn. It's a re-run of _The Tudors_. It's historical. It's educational. Why? Do you _subscribe_ to any porn channels?"

"No," Eric said defensively. "But that sure looks like - "

"- See," Shelley interrupted him, "that scene's over and now they're debating theology."

"Deep," he muttered, and began to walk away, but Shelley's voice stopped him.

"Why are you so hard on Matt?"

Eric retraced his steps back to behind the couch. Shelley turned and leaned her arms on the back and looked up at him.

"I'm not hard on him."

"Yeah, you are."

"I love that boy, and I put just the right amount of weight on him. G'night." He turned and took a step.

Shelley shook her head as she turned back to the show. "You love him, huh? Maybe you should mention that to _him_."

"He knows," Eric muttered as he disappeared down the hall.

[***]

Julie pushed off the porch and let her chair rock. "I thought my dad was about to flip out on me when he opened his mouth just now, and all he said was congratulations. I totally thought he was out here having one of his Matt chats with you. I was coming out to rescue you."

"He was," Matt said, coming to stand behind her. He grabbed the top of the rocking chair to still it and then began rubbing her shoulders. "But it wasn't so bad. I mean, at first it was pretty bad. But then later it wasn't so bad. We're cool, me and your dad."

"You're cool? What does that mean?"

"I think we understand each other. Sort of. And he trusts me. Mostly."

Julie shook her head. "The way he was shredding that turkey when he came back from the kitchen, I thought he was going to cut right through the table."

Matt laughed. "Or stop hacking apart the turkey and castrate me." He stopped rubbing. "He had some stuff to say, about kids and all, and…he made it sound really hard."

"My dad makes _everything_ sound really hard." She pulled her hands out of her coat pocket and put them over his on her shoulders and squeezed. "It won't be easy, but we'll do it," she said. She turned and smiled up at him. "You'll be a great dad, Matt. You're so...gentle and responsible and…you'll be great."

He swallowed. "I don't know about great. But I'll be there. At least I'll be there."

She smiled a little sadly, knowing he was thinking of his own father. She grabbed the lapel of his coat and pulled him down for a deep kiss.

[***]

Tami felt her husband ease into the bed next to her. She glanced at the clock and saw that it was midnight. She felt the cold flesh of his hand against her stomach as it moved up to fondle her breasts. Though he was in sweats, she was still naked because she had fallen asleep soon after their earlier lovemaking. "Cold, cold, cold," she protested, and squirmed. He took his hand away and placed it palm flat on the bed sheets but left his arm draped around her waist. She snuggled back against him and pulled the blankets closer around herself. "Where were you?" she asked. "Why are you so cold?"

"I was outside a bit. Talking to Matt. Then Julie." He kissed her bare shoulder. "You could warm me up though."

She chuckled. "Cuddling only," she said.

He sighed. "You can't blame a guy for trying."

"Nope," she agreed. "And you can't blame a girl for being tired at midnight after she cooked and cleaned all day."

"I helped."

She snorted. "You moved some chairs. Besides, you've already been treated once tonight."

He wrapped a leg around her legs. "And what a treat it was," he murmured. "You didn't seem to mind it."

She laughed. "I was treated too. I'll admit it."

They talked some more about Julie's pregnancy, about the upcoming playoff game, and about how long Shelley was or was not staying. They drifted off to sleep one after another, somewhere between words.


	5. Chapter 5

**CHAPTER FIVE**

Shelley leaned over and asked Tami, "What does that mean?" It was Friday after Thanksgiving, and the high school football stands, so often half deserted at Pemberton, were packed for this particular football game, an ancient rivalry. The crowd kept the chill at bay. Matt was holding a sleepy Gracie against his chest, and Julie was standing next to him on tiptoes trying to see the game better over the row in front of her.

"It means they need a first down to seal the win," Tami said. She laughed. "Geez, Shelley, you act like you didn't grow up in Texas and had never heard of football."

"It's not like I was a cheerleader," Shelley said. To look at her, one would think she probably had been, but the truth was that despite her sociability, Shelley had actually participated in precisely zero extracurriculars in high school. Well, Shelley _had_ engaged in plenty of extra-curricular _activities_; it was just that none of them were school sanctioned. "And you know I mostly dated baseball players in high school." More like the baseball _team_, Tami thought. "Except for that one guy on the wrestling team."

Tami missed the last play of the game because Shelley was distracting her with all of her jabbering about her high school conquests, so she was momentarily confused when the crowd erupted, until a gleeful announcer shouted that the Pioneers had won.

When Coach Taylor got home twenty minutes after the rest of his family, Shelley suggested going out to celebrate. Julie volunteered to stay home with Gracie, because the pregnancy was already wiping her out and she just wanted to go to sleep early. After Coach Taylor took a quick shower to wash off the game dirt, Matt, Tami, Shelley, and Eric piled into the SUV.

"Who's the designated driver?" Tami immediately asked when Eric started the engine.

"Not me," insisted Eric. "I'm closer to State than the Pioneers have been in fifteen years. I want to celebrate."

Tami put a hand on his knee and smiled at him, part pride, part teasing. She knew he didn't just want to celebrate. She knew he needed a couple of drinks in him if he was going to be able to _enjoy_ going out. She was a little surprised he had agreed so readily to the outing, but he'd still had the adrenaline trickling out of his system when he got home, and he was in an unusually festive mood.

"Not me," Shelley said. "No way I'll be singing any karaoke tonight if I don't get to drink."

"Karaoke?" Eric asked, his voice a near squeak. "No one said there was going to be any karaoke."

"It's optional, babe," Tami reassured him, patting his knee and then drawing her hand away.

"But I imagine _hearing_ it isn't," he grumbled.

Tami reached out and squeezed his shoulder. "Oh relax, hon. You can laugh at it at least."

Eric ran a hand through his still damp hair. "A'ight. A'ight. I can endure listening to karaoke as long as I can have some good scotch."

"I'll be it," Matt said. "I'll be the designated driver." Matt had recently turned twenty-one, or it wouldn't have been a question to begin with. Prior to that birthday, Matt never drank in the presence of Coach Taylor.

Tami glanced at Eric, who nodded. "Okay," she said. "Thanks, Matt."

As soon as they arrived at the bar and got their table, Shelley snagged the karaoke binder and started leafing through it. She began scribbling on the little sheets of paper you were supposed to turn into the karaoke MC. She was filling in his second slip when she asked, "What should I put you down for, Eric?"

"Don't you dare."

They sat and chatted and drank. Two people who recognized Eric stopped by to congratulate him on his win, but it was a big city; it wasn't like Dillon where they'd be lining up, constantly interrupting the conversation with their congratulations. The family was able to talk and drink without much bother. Even before Eric was done with his first scotch, Shelley had ordered him a second. She leaned over to Tami and whispered, "I'm going to get him to sing."

"I wasn't aware you had miraculous powers," Tami whispered back.


	6. Chapter 6

**CHAPTER SIX**

A middle-aged man who had just butchered "A Bridge over Troubled Water" stepped away from the microphone, and the MC announced, "Calling Matt Saracen to the stage."

It was a moment before Matt realized it was his own name that had been spoken. Holding his hands up defensively before himself, he said, "I didn't put _myself_ in."

Shelley patted Matt on the shoulder. "I know, because you're such a cute, shy, boy. So I did it for you. I'm sure you have a beautiful voice." They were all seated at a high, circular table, in chairs and not on stools, because Shelley had insisted that if she was going to be drinking, she needed a back to lean against. She was presently seated between Matt and Coach Taylor, and more or less across from her sister.

"Uh…" Matt stuttered. "I don't know…"

"Go on, son," Coach Taylor insisted with eyes glinting from the scotch he'd consumed. "Listen to your elders. Such as they are."

Matt walked hesitantly to the stage, stood before the microphone, and shoved both hands into the pockets of his hooded sweatshirt. A group of young women in the corner of the bar squealed loudly and looked at each other and laughed girlishly as Matt squinted at the monitor. The music cued up and Matt swallowed hard. "Unchained Melody" began to play.

"No," Matt muttered. "Sorry, no. I'm the designated driver, so I can't." The girls giggled as he walked back to the table.

Shelley shook her head at Matt as he sat down again. She exclaimed, "Coward!" (but with a smile), and then turned to look at the squealing girls. "Are those girls in high school?" she asked her sister.

"I think they're in college," Mrs. Taylor said. "They all have U-Penn sweatshirts on."

"Oh hell," Shelley muttered. "I can't even tell the difference anymore. I'm old. At least _I'm_ young at heart, though." She patted Coach Taylor.

Coach looked down at her hand on the shoulder of his long-sleeved, button-down shirt. "Are you suggesting I'm _old_ at heart?"

Mrs. Coach leaned to the side and kissed her husband's cheek. "Shhhh…Simmer down," she said, and then smiled and kissed his ear. She'd been having a few drinks of her own.

Coach Taylor's return smile was boyish and happy. Matt had never seen him smile quite that way at anyone but his wife. "You're very relaxed, babe. Maybe we should head on home."

"No. We're staying," Shelley insisted. "Tami might be able to take the stage now that she's had a few." Shelley looked all around the bar. "Isn't this fun? When was the last time you were at a karaoke bar, y'all?"

"Me?" Coach Taylor said. "Never."

"Me?" Mrs. Taylor asked. "The last time I was at a karaoke bar I got blindsided by a kiss from a Dillon High colleague."

Shelley raised an eyebrow. "Okay…I get it. You guys used to work together. So you mean Eric…but he just said he's never been to a karaoke bar."

Coach Taylor shook his head. "It wasn't me." To Matt's surprise, he looked slightly more amused than irritated at this mention of his wife being kissed by another man.

Shelley's eyes grew wide and delighted. She slid off her seat and came around to stand directly next to her sister. "I want details."

Matt, a little curious himself, tried to listen as Mrs. Taylor began to tell the story to Shelley, but Coach Taylor directed his gaze at him. It was an oddly intense gaze. The man leaned over his pint glass (he'd finally switched to beer) and said, "I love you. You know that?"

"Uh…Okay." Matt looked behind himself, temporarily wondering if his father-in-law might be talking to someone else.

"You know, kids are a blessing, son. All that negative stuff…I wanted to tell you because _no one_ tells you. No one _really_ tells you how radically kids change your life. You're used to your freedom, and then suddenly," he snapped his fingers, "you can't just…you can't, you know?"

Matt didn't know, but he nodded. "No one prepares you for that, not really," his father-in-law continued. "And it can really be a shock to you …realizing how much of your life just isn't yours anymore. And I haven't even touched on all the extra money you're gonna spend. I mean it's a blessing, but it's hard, and I don't want you kids to think something's gone wrong with your marriage if things start to get hard for a time. Mrs. Taylor and I are here if you need help. And hard as it can be, you know…my kids are the best thing that ever happened to me, after my wife. Kids'll transform you. They'll make you a better man. Less selfish. More…better. More better. That sounds wrong."

Coach Taylor looked down into his pint glass, furrowed his brow, and looked back at Matt. "And you get to experience this amazing new kind of love. It's it's own thing. You know what I'm sayin'? The love you feel for your kids...it's...not like anything I can describe. And the love you'll feel for your wife after you go through all those things together. You know what I'm sayin'?" Matt nodded again and wondered when the soliloquy was going to be over. "You look like you wish you'd stayed home with Julie."

"Uh…no…" Matt answered. "Someone has to get you guys home I guess."

"Wait!" Mrs. Taylor said suddenly to her husband, flailing a hand out and then resting it on his back. "One of us has to stop drinking!"

Shelley, apparently having given up on getting the full details of Mrs. Taylor's blitz of a kiss, resumed her seat.

"Matt's driving," a confused-looking Coach reminded his wife. "Didn't we just have this discussion?"

"But someone has to be the on-duty parent in the morning for Gracie," Mrs. Taylor insisted. "One of us has to be functional for that! If we're hungover - "

"- Julie and I will be on duty for Gracie," Matt volunteered.

"Good practice, I guess," Shelley told him, raising her glass to him.

"For an infant?" Mrs. Taylor asked skeptically.

Before Shelley could answer, the MC announced her name, followed by that of "Tami Taylor." Mrs. Taylor looked at her sister with suspicion. "Oh, Lord, Shell," she said, "what did you put us in for?"

"You'll see," Shelley said with a smile as she slid once again off her chair. "Girl bonding time!"

"Oh good Lord," Mrs. Taylor muttered.

Shelley motioned for her to stand up. "Come on. You sing the white words and I'll sing the red words," Shelley told her. "It's a song about sisters. So it's apple prose."

"You mean apropos?" Mrs. Taylor asked.

"That's what I said," Shelley insisted.

Soon they were singing together, or _trying_ to sing together, the Reba McIntire song Shelley had chosen. "_I was thinking just today," _Mrs. Taylor sang,_ "About how we used to play / Barbie dolls and make-up / Tea parties dress up_."

Coach Taylor watched with a smile on his face and said to Matt, "Isn't my wife beautiful? God, she's beautiful. She can't sing when she's drunk though. Damn but that's awful. Awful. But isn't she beautiful? Awful beautiful." A low staccato laugh erupted from somewhere deep within his chest. He caught his breath. "Awful beautiful, get it?"

Matt swallowed and looked away from his father-in-law to the stage. The words on the screen switched from white to red and Shelley now sang the next verse. The last lines, about how the sisters sometimes felt like enemies but were still friends, the women sang together.

After Mrs. Taylor and Shelley had sufficiently embarrassed themselves (though they were a little too inebriated to realize they had in fact embarrassed themselves), they rejoined the men at the table and high fived each other. Coach Taylor watched his wife with laughter in his eyes.

"We were brilliant," Shelley said.

Mrs. Coach turned to her husband. "Top that."

"Babe," he said, still half laughing, "there's _no_ topping that."


	7. Chapter 7

**CHAPTER SEVEN**

A college kid now took the stage and began singing Kenny Chesney's "The Boys of Fall." He was the first to hit the microphone and sing really well. He sang about being back in his football uniform, gathered in the huddle, the fans all around going crazy. At the table, Coach Taylor nodded. "That's a'ight. That one's a'ight." Mrs. Taylor put and arm around his shoulders and rested her head against his while both listened.

When the singer got to the lines about football being the only thing they had in little towns like his, with newspaper clippings filling the walls of the coffee shops, Coach Taylor swallowed. Mrs. Taylor looked into his eyes and asked what he was thinking. "Kind of makes me miss Dillon is all," he said.

Now the young man was signing about the old men who always thought they knew it all, and Coach Taylor said, "And Buddy. Shit, I miss Buddy Garrity. How is that even possible?"

Mrs. Coach kissed his cheek.

After the part about all the players having each other's backs, Coach bit his bottom lip. "I miss Vince and Luke and Tinker and all my boys. I love my new boys, but I miss the old ones." Mrs. Coach squeezed her husband tighter. Coach Taylor shook his head as if to shake off the depth of his feeling.

Matt overheard his mutterings and witnessed his misty eyes with a combination of embarrassment and mild surprise. It wasn't that he didn't know Coach Taylor cared about his players; after all, it was part of what had made him – still made him, Matt supposed – such a fine coach. It was just that Coach Taylor sometimes had a strange way of showing he cared: like shoving you fully clothed in a bath tub and turning on the water.

Then again…Coach had others ways of showing it. Like leaving the comfort of his home to take you out to the field late at night, where he'd tell you that he couldn't imagine how hard it must be not having your father around and then teach you to shout loud enough to believe in yourself. Or like walking silently alongside you for two full miles after you broke down at his dinner table because the dad you had loved and hated with an equal passion had died before you had a chance to know him… just walking alongside you and not embarrassing you by commenting on your tears, until you finally managed to say something, and then just listening. Just listening and saying he was sorry and that he was there if you ever needed him.

Shelley leaned over to Coach Taylor. "Damn, Eric. You look kind of emotional."

"No," Coach insisted. "No." He took a swig of his beer. "Well," he said. "Damnit - football's an emotional game! You can't be unemotional about this game and coach it with any purpose." He ran a hand across his eyes.

"Okay," Shelley said, and chuckled. "It's kind of cute, actually." She leaned forward with her elbows on the table and spoke over the music to her sister. "Eric's kind of cute when he's sentimental. He's so cute I just want to kiss him. Do you mind? Can I kiss him?"

"What?" Mrs. Taylor exclaimed. "_No_ you cannot kiss my husband. Get your _own_ husband to kiss!"

"Awww…but he's the cutest I've ever seen him," Shelley whined.

"It was bad enough you used to borrow my clothes all the time without asking, and now you want to borrow my husband?"

"I'm _asking_," Shelley grumbled. "Besides, I'm just _curious_. Aren't you curious, Eric?"

"Uh…"

"About what it would be like to kiss me?" Shelley asked. "Don't tell me you haven't thought about it."

Coach glanced across the table at Mrs. Coach. Matt thought his expression looked like that of a man who'd been backed into a corner by an angry bull and his only hope of rescue was an indifferent matador. Mrs. Taylor just laughed and shook her head and said, "Fine, Shelley. Go ahead. You have my permission. I got kissed by Glenn so I guess it's only fair Eric and I even the scales. Then he can't bring Glenn up in the middle of fights anymore."

Coach Taylor leaned back stiffly into his chair, away from the table, and his eyes widened with still greater alarm, but he was spared by the announcement of the MC: "Next up, Matt Saracen and Eric Taylor."

Coach Taylor's relief was soon eclipsed by irritation. "What?" he spat. He glared at Shelley. "You did _not_ put my name in there."

"Come on!" Shelley goaded him. "It'll be fun."

"Nah. No. No way." Coach shook his head vigorously. "It'd be embarrassing enough to do karaoke with a drunk guy who can't sing, but doing it with a sober guy who _won't_ sing?" He shook his head at Matt. "No way."

"Just do it you two!" Mrs. Taylor insisted. She tilted her head and batted her eyelashes at her husband. "_Please_, hon? For me?"

"If I do this," he pointed an unsteady finger at his wife, "I better get more than eyelashes batted at me when we get home."

Shelley laughed. "That doesn't even make sense. You bat balls. OH! No. Wait. Oww. And you said batted _at_…wait…that doesn't make any sense!"

"It's because you're too drunk to understand my subtle metaphors," Coach Taylor told her.

"Or you're drunk enough to understand your own _senseless_ metaphors," Shelley countered.

"Sugar," Mrs. Taylor's tone was low and sultry and she was smiling, "do this and you can have _anything_ you want when we get home."

Shelley laughed and Matt's face felt hotter than it ever had on a Texas August day in full gear.

"Come on, Matty," Coach Taylor said. "I don't know hardly anyone in this bar, I'm drunk, _and_ I'm getting rewarded."

Matt shook his head. "But I'm not," he managed. "Drunk _or_ getting rewarded. Julie's probably asleep." Then Matt blushed even harder, because up until now, in Coach Taylor's presence, he had avoided alluding to the fact that he _ever_ had sex with Julie.

"Get up, son. Now."

Matt looked at Mrs. Taylor as if for support, but she just mouthed, "Go on now, y'all." Matt stood reluctantly.

"Eric does the words in red!" Shelley shouted as they headed up.

Coach Taylor took his place by the second microphone. The gaggle of college girls leaned in at their circular table with laughter and whispers. Matt was embarrassed by the attention, but not as unnerved as he was by the realization that their admiring gazes were actually divided between him and Coach Taylor. When the music started up and the words flashed on the screen, Coach Taylor's face grew ashen white, which distracted Matt from his own discomfort. He couldn't help but laugh.

"Oh hell no!" Coach Taylor exclaimed. "Justin Timberlake? You have _got_ to be kiddin' me!" Coach was not known for his cultural literacy, but he did spend more than half his waking hours around high school kids, and he probably knew enough to know that whatever words were about to flash on the screen would be a mortification for him to sing.

Matt was so amused by the possibility of seeing his father-in-law humiliated that he forgot his own embarrassment. With a huge grin, he began singing, not expertly by any means, but at least in-tune, "SexyBack."

Coach Taylor just stood on the other side of the stage from him, holding his empty pint glass and shaking his head. Eventually he did join in, sporadically, stating, rather than singing, his lines. "_Come here girl_," he said. Coach squinted at the next line with a confused look, and then on the one after that read, "_Come to the back_." He squinted again. "_VIP!_" he shouted. "What does that even mean?" he asked, and then he read, "_Drinks on me._" He pointed to Matt. "_Look at those hips._"

Matt was deadly sober, but he was curious to see Coach's reaction, so he actually swiveled his hips. Instead of growing irritated or red with mortification, either of which Matt could have foreseen, Coach bent over laughing. Then he pulled himself back up into a standing position and read, "_Get your sexy on._" Then again he read, or rather laughed, "_Get your sexy on_." Coach shook his head. "_Get your sexy on._ On what? What does that mean?"

Matt sang the second verse while Coach Taylor shook his head and tried to drink his nonexistent beer. When the red words came up again, Coach Taylor stepped close to the microphone and in a low voice read, "_Come here girl. Come to the daddy._" By now Mrs. Taylor was laughing so hard her whole body was shaking. "_Get your sexy on. Go ahead_, Tami. _Get your sexy on_."

After Matt assisted Coach Taylor back to the table – because his father-in-law had experienced a little trouble with the two stairs leading up to the stage – Coach stood behind Mrs. Coach, put a hand on each of her shoulders, and squeezed. "You're paying me for that, babe," he told her. "Serious payment."

Matt did not want to think about payment being rendered in the bedroom next to the one where he and Julie were staying, so he was a little relieved when he pulled into the Taylors' driveway and both Coach and Mrs. Coach were passed out in the back seat, Coach's cheek on his wife's shoulder, his mouth half open, gently snoring. Shelley muttered goodnight and stumbled her way into the house and into the study where she was sleeping on a futon. Matt assisted Coach and Mrs. Coach one by one into their bedroom, where he tossed them fully clothed onto the bed.

"Sweet dreams," he said as he closed the door.

[***]

"So what's it like partying with my dad?" Julie asked when Matt crawled into bed and nuzzled her, unintentionally waking her. She yawned and then asked, "Did he tell you if you knock me up again in less than five years he's getting his carving knife?"

Matt kissed the top of her head. "Nope. He told me he loves me and then sang SexyBack with me."

Julie laughed. "You're such a smart ass. I love you."

Matt grinned broadly, cuddled in, and closed his eyes. "I love you, too." He lay there silently for a while, his young, pregnant wife in his arms. He'd been warned by older married friends that the sex would start tapering off soon – that he might have a respite in the second trimester, but he could forget about the last month of the first and a good part of the third, and then there was the long, six week drought after the baby was born. "Hey," he whispered. "Since you're awake…think I could get rewarded?"

Julie turned in his arms. "What?"

"I mean, I had to be the designated driver and all, so it wasn't exactly fun for me." It had, in fact, been far more amusing than he expected, but most of the evening his amusement had been offset by his discomfort.

"Well, you did put up with my dad for an entire evening, so…" She smiled and kissed him. "What kind of reward did you have in mind?"


	8. Chapter 8

**CHAPTER EIGHT**

Tami awoke at 9:30 AM Saturday morning with the worst hangover she had experienced in more than twenty years. She dragged herself out of bed and left a slumbering Eric behind. When she staggered into the kitchen, Matt, Julie, Gracie, and even Shelley were eating breakfast. Judging from the massive quantity of chocolate chips in the pancakes, Tami was guessing it was Shelley who had prepared them. "Why aren't you hungover?" she asked her sister.

"Because you stopped _really_ building up your tolerance in your early twenties," Shelley said. "And I was smart and I didn't." She popped a bit of nearly black-with-chocolate pancake into her mouth and murmured, "MMMMM…"

Tami was forced to admit to her daughter and son-in-law that she and Eric were in no condition for anything other than bed. Julie, gloating over the fact that she and Matt were clearly the responsible ones, kissed her mother on the forehead.

"We're all taking Gracie to the movies anyway," Shelley said. "So we'll be out of your hair."

"Yay!" exclaimed Gracie, bouncing in her chair, and Matt chuckled at his little sister-in-law's reaction.

Tami and Eric languished in bed for the next couple of hours, drinking water and sleeping intermittently. Eric, now fully awake, reached for the bottle of Advil Tami had gotten for them around ten thirty.

"Babe, you can't take anymore," Tami warned him. "It hasn't been long enough."

"Oh, the numbers on the bottle are just a suggestion," he insisted as he popped another two into his mouth.

"That's bad for you," she scolded him. Five minutes later, however, she demanded that he give her two. The pills tasted bitter as they skidded across her tongue and down her throat. She dragged herself to the shower and began to awaken beneath the hot spray. When she returned, Eric asked if she had left him any hot water, and she nodded, but he came back five minutes later, wet and shivering with a towel wrapped around his waist, claiming she hadn't.

"Well you managed to get clean anyway," she observed.

After they were both dressed, Eric rustled up some "hangover food," which meant the turkey and pecan pie leftover from Thanksgiving dinner.

"Oh, God," Tami moaned as she dug into the last piece of pie. "I didn't have any of this yesterday. Oh, God." She licked a crumb off her lips. "I had no idea it was this good. I can't believe Shelley was the one to bring this. She must have _**bought**_ it. But from where?" Tami took another bite. "Mhmmmm….yes."

Eric raised an eyebrow. "I'd like to do to you what that pie is doing."

"Hon, sex is the _last_ thing on my mind today."

"Well, it _was_ the last thing on mine until you started moaning and licking your lips. You really can't expect a man not to react to that, babe."

"I feel awful. Isn't your head pounding still?"

"It is, but you know, they say sex is a great cure for headaches."

"Mhmmm…" she murmured, digging her fork in for another bite. "I think what I really need right now is this pie." Tami licked her fork clean. She closed her eyes and savored the last little morsel.

"I don't see why you need to rely on some damn pie to make you moan when you have a perfectly good," he waved a hand up and down the length of his body, "moan inducer right here."

She threw back her head and laughed. "I love you, hon. You're so funny."

As she got up and brought her plate to the sink, he called after her, "I wasn't trying to be funny."

When she returned to the table, she put a hand on his shoulder. "You know what, hon? You coached an amazing game yesterday. And you aren't just a great coach because you win games. You've been a role model to those boys. You've shaped their characters. You're someone they can look up to, because you're a good man, a good husband, a good teacher, a good coach, and a good father."

"Where did that come from?" he asked.

She saw that his eyes had grown slightly moist as she spoke, the way they often did when she praised him.

She shrugged. "It's just that it's true," she said, and then, repeating his own words from Thursday night, "and it was worth saying. "

He put his arms around her waist, lay his cheek against her chest, and breathed in deeply. "Thanks, babe," he said. "That's almost as good as sex."

She bent down and kissed the top of his head. "Well, maybe we can do the sex thing too. I mean, you did sing for me last night. Sort of."

[***]

"How's your head?"

"Better," Tami admitted, snuggling closer to her husband beneath the sheets.

"Told you so."

She giggled. "How's yours?" she asked suggestively, easing the hand that was on his chest downward, over his stomach, and below.

He closed his eyes abruptly and breathed in. "Well," he muttered, "it _was_ relaxed." He opened one eye and looked down at her. "You really want to get me started again?"

"If they were going to lunch first, I'm sure it'll be at least another hour before they get back. How many opportunities do we get to have the house to ourselves in the middle of the afternoon?"

"You don't have to convince me."

"Well then," she said, moving her hand back up to his chest, "are you just going to lie there, or are you going to do something?"

When he grabbed her wrist and rolled her on her back, she let out a surprised yelp. He slid atop her. "Baby, I'm bringing sexy back." He tried to kiss her, but she was laughing too hard. "I don't understand," he said. "It works for Justin Timberlake." He smiled and tickled her ribs lightly until her body jerked instinctively beneath his. "Come on, Tami. Get your sexy on."

[***]

If Matt was lucky, any rewards Coach Taylor was destined to receive for consenting to sing karaoke had been allotted while he, Julie, Shelley, and Gracie were at the movies, and he wouldn't have to risk potentially overhearing anything tonight. The guest bedroom was only a wall away from the master bedroom, after all. That's why he and Julie had engaged in such a quiet round of lovemaking last night, making good use of shoulders and pillows as moan stiflers.

Once, when they had been in Philadelphia for a long weekend, they had overheard the Taylors in the next bedroom. He and Julie had both shoved pillows over their ears. Fortunately, Julie's "Ewwwwws" were generally louder than Coach's moans of "Oh, God, Tami," and Mrs. Coach's "Yes! More!" It probably hadn't lasted long, but it felt like an eternity with their heads and ears buried under those pillows, and afterwards, he and Julie had never spoken of it.

Coach had looked sobered and unusually cheerful by the time the rest of them got home from the movie and a late lunch, however, and Mrs. Coach had gone to bed early while Coach stayed up to work in his office, so Matt and Julie were probably safe from any horrifying assault on their ears tonight. Of the four of them, Shelley had enjoyed the movie the most, laughing uproariously at every piece of physical, cartoonish humor. Gracie had been the next most engaged, and Julie had been the least amused. As she lay in bed now next to Matt, the last night before they would return to Chicago, she said, "I used to kind of like kid's movies. But now it's occurring to me that I'm going to watch dozens and dozens of them over the next eight years, and probably not much else."

"We can watch adult movies when baby Saracen is in bed. And on date night." Which would have to be no more than once a month on their budget.

Julie giggled. "Adult movies? Matthew! Not with me you're not. Besides, I don't think we need much inspiration."

He grinned. "You know what I mean. Movies for grown-ups. Maybe even something PG-13."

She laughed and rolled against his chest. She settled her cheek onto it. "Do you think this is going to be as hard as my mom and dad say it is?"

"Well, it's mostly your dad saying it."

Julie slid a hand down to his ribs. He was wearing only his black boxers. "No, my mom had a long chat with me too about all the challenges of parenting, blah, blah, blah, how it's a blessing and wonderful but also – don't forget Julie babe – a bit of a death sentence!"

Matt raised his head to look down at her. "She did _not_ say that."

"Not in so many words."

"You exaggerate about your mom a lot."

"Oh, you're just the perfect son-in-law aren't you? Always taking my mom's side." Her tone was testy and wounded.

"What?" Matt looked befuddled.

"Sorry," Julie muttered, rolling on her back. "Hormones I guess."

"Handy excuse. Don't use it too often, okay?" he said, also turning on his side and pressing his back against her, the familiar warmth, the light contact that made sleep comforting.

"Okay," she agreed. "I won't." There was a long pause. "Except when it's true."

Seven months to go, more or less. Matt assured himself he could survive. Just be careful what you say, he warned himself. Very careful.


	9. Chapter 9

**CHAPTER NINE**

Tami had just turned on the stove when Eric came in. "We're having leftover stew," she said, "because that's all I have the energy for today." Leftover stew was the surprise symphony that arose when she threw a medley of leftover meat and vegetables into a single pot and whipped up a commiserate broth to pour over it.

"Smells great." He tossed his keys on the counter and kissed Gracie, who was sitting rather precariously on a bar stool, on the top of her head. "Hey, Nugget," he murmured. "Why don't you go get Daddy a beer?"

"Eric!" Tami scolded as Gracie slid off the stool.

"What?" he asked innocently. "She likes to feel useful."

Tami shook her head as Gracie opened the fridge and went, without hesitation or the need for scanning, straight for the spot in the door that housed the beer. As she handed the libation to her father, she asked, "Can I watch G.I. Joe on Wii Netflix 'til dinner's ready?"

"Sure," Eric said, and Gracie disappeared into the living room. "That girl's got good taste in quality children's programming."

"Yeah, you'll be singing a different tune when she enlists at eighteen. You know she said she wants a bazooka for Christmas?"

"That's my girl."

"A real bazooka. And a real tank." Tami went to the refrigerator and took out a bottle of Chardonnay. Matt and Julie and Shelley had days ago cleared out of the house and headed to their separate homes, and by now she was back deep into the grind of work. "Will you get me a glass?" she asked. "I need some right now."

"You know, babe, when you cook with wine…at least _some_ is supposed to actually get _in_ the recipe."

She glared at him.

"Bad day?" he asked as he pulled a wine glass out of the cupboard and handed it to her.

She put the glass on the counter and grabbed the corkscrew out of a drawer. "Yeah, well, it's kind of insulting when a college boy whistles at me in the hallway of one of our most dignified buildings and the President, who's standing right there beside me, just laughs." She pushed down on the rabbit ears of the corkscrew and popped the cork free from the bottle. "That wouldn't have happened in Dillon."

"It _didn't_ happen in Dillon. That doesn't mean it _wouldn't_. Are you even aware of how sexy you are?"

"I'm in my forties, hon."

"Well you don't look a day over thirty-nine," he assured her. And you're the hottest woman at Braemore."

"Don't defend him."

"The student or the President?"

"It's Carl I'm mad at. He's the President! He should have said something!"

His arms slipped around her. "You should be President," he said. He kissed the back of her neck and she murmured and leaned back.

"I cooked. You're doing the dishes," she told him.

"You're making sure Gracie takes her shower and brushes her teeth."

"You're reading to her tonight," she said.

"You're rubbing my neck later."

"You're massaging my shoulders."

He chuckled and kissed the side of her neck. "I'll massage anything you want, Dean Taylor."

She laughed and squirmed away, and, in the same fluid motion, lifted the now ringing kitchen phone off of its receiver. "Hello?"

Eric poured her a glass of wine while she talked.

"Hey, Julie babe, how are you feeling?" Tami nodded her thanks and took the Chardonnay her husband was handing her. "Yeah," she said, and took a sip. "Oh?"

Eric stood with his palms flat down on the counter and watched Tami talk. "Well, if you're craving meat, you probably need the iron. Just eat the meat. There's no shame in it. Or eat more leafy greens if you really can't bring yourself to enjoy a dead cow." Eric smirked. He went and turned down the stove (the stew was now almost boiling over) and then came and stood at the kitchen bar next to Tami. "You need to toss that book in the trash, Julie," Tami was insisting. "It can make you insane."

Eric raised an eyebrow in question. Tami covered the mouthpiece of the phone and said, "_What to Expect When You're Expecting,_" Then she uncovered it and went back to talking to Julie. "I read a version of that when I was pregnant with Gracie. I'm sure it's been updated, but if it's anything like the old version, you need to throw it in the trash. You really don't need an indexed catalog of everything that can possibly go wrong but probably won't. Just have a cup of coffee every now and then." She paused a while longer, said a few more uh-huhs, and then, "So, what are our family plans for Christmas?" She paused just long enough for Julie's answer. "You want to talk to your _father_?"

"Don't sound so surprised," Eric insisted. "Of _course_ she wants to talk to her father." He plucked the phone from her hand and Tami started making the final preparations for dinner. "Hey, Monkey Noodle." Eric gave Tami a self-satisfied look as she opened a cabinet. "Are you in need of some sage, fatherly advice?" Both his wife and daughter snorted at the same time.

"No, Dad," Julie said, still half laughing. "I was just calling to wish you luck at State. It's this coming Friday, right?"

"Yeah."

"Well, good luck," his daughter said.

"We don't need luck. We need about an extra 400 pounds on our defensive line."

"Is this the team that beat you by 28 points last time?"

"Grant. Yeah. That would be the one."

He could hear the smile in her voice as she said, "Sorry I can't be there to see you win."

"Yeah, well, you aren't traveling anywhere for a while. You probably shouldn't have travelled for Thanksgiving. You're not supposed to fly when you're pregnant, right?"

"What do you know about pregnancy?" Julie asked.

"I did some reading when your mother had Gracie."

"But not when she had me? You left it all up to her that time, huh? Got enlightened somewhere in between?"

Eric smiled and stepped out of Tami's way as she nudged him on her way to fetch a large spoon. As she passed, she whispered, "Ask her about Christmas plans."

"Seriously," Eric said, "I thought you weren't supposed to fly."

"I checked with my doctor first. She didn't seem too concerned. But…I'm not going to push it either, which is why I need to tell you guys we're not coming for Christmas. And I know you guys don't want to pay for three plane tickets and a hotel, which you'd have to do, because we have no room here."

"We'll get a hotel. It's fine. We have the money, Julie."

"Really, it's okay, Dad. You don't have to come."

"Do you not _want_ us to come?"

Tami, who was by now stirring the stew, dropped the spoon and whirled around to face Eric. She put a hand on one hip.

There was a long pause on the other end of the line. "It's just…" Julie said. "Matt and I talked about it…and this year we really just want a quiet Christmas at home alone in Chicago. Besides, Landry's coming."

"You realize this will be the first Christmas we don't spend together?" When Eric said this, Tami's eyes opened in alarm. _What?_ she mouthed at him. He shrugged.

"Yeah. I know," Julie said. "But it's more important for us all to spend holidays together _after_ the baby is born. Listen, Dad, I've got to go."

"You want to talk to your mama again?"

"I'll call her later. Matt just came in and we're already late for dinner at friend's house. I've got to go."

Before he could even say goodbye, she had hung up.

"What's this about Christmas?" Tami asked in that high tone that communicated that she was not pleased.

Eric shrugged again. "Our daughter doesn't want to spend Christmas with us. What can you do? She wants to spend it with Lance instead."

"Landry?"

"What the hell kind of name is that?" he asked. "Why can't people just give their children normal names? Like Julie and Grace?"


	10. Chapter 10

**CHAPTER TEN**

Julie and Matt were sitting at their petite, two-person kitchen table eating breakfast before Matt took off for work. He was shoveling scrambled eggs into his mouth, the thought of which nauseated her, while she was delicately munching dry toast. The only thing on his plate that looked the least bit appetizing to her was the bacon, but she would not give in to her unnatural cravings. She had made it eight years as a vegetarian, and she was not about to abandon her principles now, after years of sloughing off her father's jokes and her mother's unvoiced (but spoken through looks at the dinner table) worries. What kind of mother would she be if she tossed eight years of discipline aside for a single taste of salty, savory, fatty, delicious…besides. She hated the taste of meat. The thought of it repulsed her. Or at least it used to.

She looked away from the bacon and sipped her coffee. Half-caf, one cup a day. She was allowing herself that – four ounces of real coffee a day, no matter what the damn book said. Eventually, she'd have to get herself dressed and head out for her mid-morning class, but for now she just wanted to share breakfast with her husband. She foresaw herself lounging with a book for another half hour after he left. It would have to be one of her textbooks, however. Her course load was a bit overwhelming this semester, and she was having trouble finding time to study when all she wanted to do in the evenings was sleep. She had crammed the maximum allowable number of classes into this semester in order to ensure that she could graduate early. She didn't want to be in her third trimester and still going to college. She wanted to make sure she had her degree before this baby was born.

"Want the last piece?" Matt asked, pointing to a strip of bacon. It was a tired joke, one he used almost every morning since they'd started living together. It made her smile not because it was funny, but because it had become a kind of tradition.

"Someday you'll appreciate that enlightened humans don't need to slaughter animals to subsist," she said.

"Not to _subsist_," he agreed. "But to really live." He smiled broadly picked up the bacon, and waved it in front of her nose. Damn but it smelled good. He popped it into his mouth.

She looked away from his slow chewing and into her coffee cup. "Why doesn't Landry want to spend Christmas at home?" she asked.

Matt shrugged. "He said his parents aren't being supportive of his life choices or something like that, and he doesn't want to spend the holiday with them because they'll just nag him."

Julie laughed. "His _life choices_? You mean Karen?"

Karen was Landry's one-time Calculus III professor. He'd at least waited until he was no longer in the class to start dating her, but now that he had graduated, he was living with the thirty-two year old. Well, he lived with her when he was in Houston, anyway, which wasn't often these days, because he was "touring" with his band.

Landry had graduated summa cum laude and was planning to go to medical school eventually, but he wasn't applying for admissions yet, because he wanted to give his band a chance to "hit it big". Julie didn't think Landry really believed he had a chance of "hitting it big," but he liked to talk the talk, and he was having fun.

"I have to strike while the iron is hot," Landry had told them the last time he was in Chicago for a gig. He'd played the couple the new CD his band had recorded for some tiny, independent label, and Matt had smirked and said, "The iron is lukewarm."

"Not Karen," Matt said. "He hasn't even told them about Karen. It's just they want him to go to med school right away, instead of taking a year or two off to tour." Matt couldn't say the word "tour" with a straight face. Still smiling, he continued, "Apparently his folks aren't too supportive of his dreams."

Matt's tone was sarcastic, but he paused and forced his smile straight. Julie thought maybe he was considering the fact that his own dreams had once seemed foolish and out of reach, and yet he was actually beginning to realize them. His work wasn't exactly selling like hotcakes, but it _was_ selling from time to time, and he was making a living, if not as an artist, than at least in the _field_ of art, through his work at the gallery. In fact, they'd managed to save up enough for a down-payment on a two bedroom condo. They were shopping now and hoped to have something to move into by spring break.

At length, Matt gave up trying to repress his smile. His lips arched. Julie loved how full they were, and how just one end of his mouth went up, and how his teeth seemed to smile too. He switched the subject. "How did your mom react when you said they shouldn't come for Christmas?"

"I told my Dad, and I'm just letting him tell her. He's usually less hysterical about these things."

Matt chuckled. "Well, Coach is _never_ _hysterical_. He just gets…pissed off. "

"You know what I mean. My mom's the one who flipped out when I wanted to stop going to church. My mom's the one who flipped out when I went with you to that concert and didn't tell them. My Dad flips out…but in a different way…about completely different things."

In a way that sometimes involved busting taillights, for instance. Her mother, on the other hand, had been surprisingly supportive of Julie after her screw up with the T.A., making great efforts to calm Julie's dad. Julie supposed that maybe her parents just fell into some kind of natural balance, like a set of old-fashioned weights, one dragging the other back down when he or she started flying out of equilibrium.

Julie could usually tell which directions the scales were going to tip, and she knew when it came to something like not spending Christmas with her parents, it would be her mother's end of the scale that shot out of balance, and her father's calm weight that leveled it again.

[***]

"Why wouldn't she want to spend Christmas with us? _Why?_"

Eric reached out and grabbed the clock on the nightstand. He looked at the glowing red numbers that read 3:23 AM. "Go. To. Sleep."

"Why?" Tami repeated. "Do you think something's wrong? Do you think they're fighting?"

"No," he muttered, slamming the clock back down on the nightstand. "I think she doesn't want the trouble of having all three of us and Landry hanging out in their one-bedroom studio apartment while she's tired, nauseous, and pregnant. That's what I think."

Tami sat up and turned on the light. He winced. "But we'd stay in a hotel!" she insisted. We'd stay in a hotel and just come over for Christmas dinner. I'd do all the cooking if she wanted! I'd clean up! We could even go _out_ to dinner. It's Chicago. I'm sure there'd be a few places open even on Christmas."

"Tami, it's no big deal. You knew this was bound to happen at some point. She's grown up. She's married. She has a life. We're not the center of her existence anymore. Not that we have been since she turned thirteen."

"But it's Christmas!"

He put the pillow over his head to block out the light. "She was here for Thanksgiving. We're lucky if we keep getting one holiday a year, babe. Now turn off the light. Go to sleep."

She put a hand on his back, which was turned to her. "Why aren't you more upset about this?"

"Because it's no big deal. Damn, woman, it's three in the mornin'. Go to sleep! We'll go for New Year's, okay? Be back in time for school to start."

"They probably don't want us for New Year's either. They probably have plans to party all night with Matt's artsy friends."

"Yeah," he said drolly, "I'm sure our three-month-pregnant daughter's going to be drinking and droppin' acid all night long, babe."

"And they spent last Christmas in Dillon and they've already said they're spending next Thanksgiving in Dillon with Grandma Saracean and - "

Eric sat up abruptly and turned to her. "Hey, want to have sex? I want to have sex. Since the lights are on and we're both awake and everything."

She frowned and reached over and turned off the lamp. "Good night," she muttered.

He lay back down and rolled over. "Thought that would do the trick."


	11. Chapter 11

**CHAPTER ELEVEN**

Landry stood in the living room, or, as Julie liked to call it, "the living closet," of Matt and Julie's studio apartment strumming his air guitar and jerking his head up and down to the sound of his own CD, which by now, had sold just enough copies to net him and his band members a little under $800 each. Landry had blamed the less-than-stellar sales on the lack of publicity power wielded by the small, independent label that had risked producing the album. At least, however, Landry said, the producer had allowed the band "to maintain its artistic integrity."

"You said he was coming three _days_ before Christmas," Julie hissed to Matt from the ultra-compact kitchen that was only a few feet from the living closet. Those high ceilings were spectacular, but when it came to actual living space, the loft left much to be desired. "This is three _weeks_ before Christmas."

"Well, I thought he said three _days_," Matt muttered, raising his gray sleeve, which was long enough to stretch out to conceal his hand, to his mouth. He chewed on the fabric.

"That's four weeks total if he leaves New Year's day! He isn't staying with us for four weeks!"

Matt lowered his arm, the cuff now damp from his nervous habit. "I didn't…Julie, I swear, I didn't say he could come three weeks before Christmas. I _thought_ he said three days."

"Well go say something to him! Tell him he can't stay here!"

"Yeah…oh..oh…" Matt stuttered, "okay." He walked into the living room. "Hey, Landry, dude, it's great you're here and all, but we weren't expecting you until a few days before Christmas."

Julie followed Matt into the living room and flopped down onto the love seat, as though to make sure her husband followed through. The window frame behind her was lined with greenery, and a set of stockings hung from the wall to her right, but no other Christmas decorations donned the apartment. They had decided they simply didn't have room for a tree, but they were thinking of hanging some white lights from the rafters, if they could borrow a ladder from a neighbor.

"Well, I told you we had five gigs in Chicago this month," Landry said. The first one's tomorrow and the last one's New Year's Eve. We've got a wedding, three clubs, and then that New Year's Eve multi-band extravaganza thing."

"Yeah, see, the thing is…" Matt scratched behind his ear. "…I thought you said you were coming three _days_ before Christmas, not three _weeks_."

Landry let his arms fall open, and his mouth formed into a narrow-lipped smile. "Do you even listen to me when I'm talking to you?"

"Well, you know, I might have been a little distracted when you called. You called me at work. I had a lot going on."

"The point is," Julie said, "that we love you, we do, we love you Landry, but this place really isn't big enough to stay for four weeks, you know?"

Landry did that thing he always did, what Julie called shrugging with his face. Then he sat down next to her on the love seat. "Don't worry, Julie. Don't worry about it. I wasn't planning to stay here. I'm just going to hang out with you guys from time to time. I'm staying with one of my girlfriends."

Matt shook his head. "What happened to that cradle robber in Houston? Karen?"

"You should be one to talk," Landry said. "What with that Guatemalan statutory rapist you -"

Matt's jaw grew tight and his eyes narrowed. Landry swallowed his words, glanced at Julie, and then glanced back at Matt. Julie looked down at the floor. She and Matt had an unspoken rule that involved pretending that neither of them had ever had any former lovers.

"So…anyhoo…" Landry hastened, with a big deflecting grin on his face and a carefree tone, "Karen and I have an open relationship."

Julie's discomfort was replaced by a smirk. "Open on who's end?" she asked.

"I stay with her when I'm in Houston," Landry said, his tone serious but laughter I his eyes, "but I have a girlfriend in every major city. You know I like to keep a lot of irons in the fire and have a place to stay when I'm on tour."

"Sure, Landry," she said, laughing. "Although I don't know if playing non-ticketed gigs, including a wedding, counts as _touring_."

"Okay." Landry nodded. "Okay, you got me. I'm staying with my bass player in his parent's basement. They're from Chicago. And Karen and I are still together. I think. At least we were last time I was in Houston. But she hasn't called me back in a week."

"Sorry, man," Matt said, and he sounded genuinely sympathetic.

"Why? I said I think we're still together."

Julie put forth her best shot at reassurance: "She's really _is_ a little old for you anyway, Landry."

"I said we're still together. And as for her age - I _like_ experienced women."

Matt smirked. "Is that why you dated Tyra?"

"Matthew!" Julie scolded him, but Landry laughed, and for a moment, no matter how fast the world moved, no matter how big it was, it felt like the earth was standing still, right in the heart of some microcosm where friendship never changed.

[***]

"Hey, Mom, it's me," Julie said through the phone. "I was just calling to talk to Dad. I wanted to see how his big game went."

"Hold on." Tami stretched the cord to the kitchen bar, which was twice the length of their old bar and boasted granite countertops instead of laminate. She'd received a housing stipend from the college, and that with their combined salaries had enabled them to afford East Coast real estate, though Eric had been reluctant to spend so much. "What if one of us loses our job?" he'd asked, and she'd pointed out that they could always sell and downsize because the area they lived in was in high demand. He'd finally relented, but only because they had saved enough for a reasonable down payment and Tami was now making almost twice what she had in Dillon.

Tami set down the receiver and walked around to the other side, where she sat on a stool and picked up the phone again. She liked having the wall phone, even though Julie had rolled her eyes at it on Thanksgiving and had told her they were the only people she knew so old-fashioned as to still have a landline. "I don't think you want to talk to him about that right now," she told her daughter. "It's been twenty hours and he's still in a foul mood."

"Did they get slaughtered?"

"Well, that's the thing. They didn't. I think the loss might actually have been easier for him if they had been. But they were ahead at halftime. Grant tied it up in the third quarter and then scored a winning touchdown in the very last minute of the game."

"Ouch."

"He's been banging around at his workshop in the garage all morning and afternoon. Claims he's building a storage shelf."

"Dad? Building something?" Julie laughed.

"Well, he's swinging a hammer anyway. Loudly. And sawing wood. Violently."

"Yeah, Matt and I need some space like you guys have. You can just leave him in there when he gets like that and do your own thing. It's not like you knock into him every time you turn around."

Tami shifted on her stool. She wasn't conscious of the counselor's tone creeping into her voice. "Are you two…having difficulties?"

"_Difficulties?_" Tami never got used to the condescending sarcasm in her daughter's voice. It still irked her every time. "We're fine, Mom. Perfectly fine. We could just use a bigger place. Especially with the baby coming. Especially since Matt takes up half the space we _do_ have for his art and art supplies."

"Maybe I could help you research other places to live when we're up there. We thought we'd fly out December 30th. Spend New Year's Eve with you if that's okay." Tami waited. She didn't care for the prolonged silence on the other end of the phone.

"Well, we kind of put a bid in on a condo already. Two bedrooms. If we get it, it won't be ready for move-in until sometime in spring, but they have it on the market now."

"Oh. Congratulations. Though I'd loved to have helped you find it." Tami imagined she could hear Julie rolling her eyes on the other end of the line.

"And the other thing is," Julie continued, "We kind of had plans for New Year's Eve. Landry's still going to be in town, and then there's this party at the gallery where Matt works…" _I knew it_! Tami thought. "…but you guys are welcome to fly out and come along if you want. I just don't know how Dad would feel about it. He's not real comfortable with the artsy types, you know. And then what would you do with Gracie?"

"Fine. We'll come out for spring break instead. Easter? Can you condescend to spend Easter with us?"

"Condescend? Mom! Come on! Yes, we'd love to have you over spring break. We could use your help moving. And I'll be in my third trimester then, so I could probably just use your help in general."

Tami was softened by her daughter's suggestion that she might actually be needed. "Okay," she said. Just then she heard the garage door slam, and her muttering husband came into the kitchen holding his thumb.

"There's something wrong with that hammer," he said. He put his thumb in his mouth and started sucking on it. Tami giggled. "What?" he grunted.

"Nothing," she said.

Later, when Tami was off the phone (Julie took her advice and said she would call to chat with her father later, in a day or two, when he'd calmed down), Eric expected Tami to take pity on his thumb and sit with him on the couch as he iced it. He leaned back against her while she wrapped her arms around him and held her hand over the ice-cold boo-boo bunny. For a man who was so tough in public, who would never take a sick day unless he was dying, and who had once endured regular poundings as a football player, he sure milked the minor injuries at home, bartering for affection with trivial cuts, trifling bruises, aching muscles, and sore thumbs.

Gracie stood, rather than sat, in her father's recliner, balancing herself as it rocked slightly, half watching a Veggie Tales movie. Eric told her to sit down and she did, leaping first into the air and then plopping on her butt on the thick, brown cushion. She let out a little _ow_ while her father let out a long sigh.

"What's wrong, hon?" Tami asked, taking the hand that wasn't holding the ice pack and brushing the hair back from his brow.

"Nothing," he said. "Season's over, and now I just get to enjoy my family for a bit. It's not a bad thing."

Tami kissed the top of his head. "Sure. You'll enjoy the quiet for two or three weeks. Then you'll be itching for the next season to start."


	12. Chapter 12

**CHAPTER TWELVE**

Landry sat at the kitchen table staring at the luminous screen of Julie's laptop. He tapped on the keyboard for a moment and then clicked on the mouse pad. "I think I'm going to apply to Northwestern for med school. You know, if my band doesn't _happen_ to hit it big in the next couple of months."

"Just in case, huh?" Julie asked.

"Just in case. Then I can hang out with you guys all the time."

Julie nodded from the chair opposite him while Matt set down two beers. The young artist went to his studio area to get another straight-backed wooden chair. Landry leaned his head toward the direction Matt had retreated and said, "Hey, be a gentleman and get your wife a beer too!"

Matt returned with the chair, set it between Landry and Julie, and sat down.

"I'm not drinking," Julie said.

"Why not?" Landry asked.

Matt and Julie glanced at one another.

"Oh no way! Don't tell me!" Landry shook his head. "Seriously? Pregnant? Julie Taylor is pregnant? Are you serious?"

Julie shrugged.

"Julie Taylor is _not_ pregnant," Matt clarified. "If I got Julie _Taylor_ pregnant, I'd be buried in a football field somewhere right about now. Julie _Saracen_ is pregnant."

"Well congratulations!" Landry held up a hand and high-fived Julie. He then turned to Matt.

"It's not a state ring," Matt muttered, echoing his father-in-law's earlier sobering speech, but then he smiled and high-fived Landry back.

"You know what you guys should totally get?" Landry asked. "One of those things you hang from the door frame that the kid dangles in and jumps up and down." He pointed up to the high loft ceilings. "You could so hang that from the rafters."

"Yeah," Julie said, "that's exactly what we want to do. Suspend our kid five feet from the floor."

Landry shrugged. "Well, he'd be out of your hair."

"Or _she_," Julie insisted. "It could be a girl."

"Especially if Coach Taylor is any indication," Landry said. "He only has girls."

Julie blinked at him. "Maybe you should put off those med school applications for two years instead of just one."

"Yeah," Matt agreed. "It's determined by the dude, Landry."

Landry shook his head, chortled, and let a hand come to rest on his leg. "I _know_ that. I'm just messing with y'all."

[***]

Gracie leaned down in her father's arms and pointed to a heart shaped pendant in the glass case. "That one." She then straightened up and slid her arms back around his neck.

"You think that's the one mommy would like best? I don't know, Gracie. What about this one?" Coach Taylor pointed to a more reasonably priced piece of jewelry farther down the case.

"No. It's not as pretty." She pointed again, nearly sliding out of his arms this time. "This one."

He righted her. "Uh…that's a little expensive….I think maybe this one…"

Gracie put a hand on each of his cheeks and pulled his face in the direction of hers. She looked directly in his eyes. "Daddy, is mommy pretty?"

"She's beautiful."

"And smart," Gracie reminded him.

"Yes. Yes indeed."

"And nice. So she needs a _really_ pretty necklace for Christmas. Not just a sort of pretty one."

The woman behind the counter chuckled. Eric looked at her and she suppressed her laugh. He looked down at the piece of jewelry Grace had selected. "A'ight. Yeah. That one. The one my daughter said. Can you wrap it for me?"

"In green paper," Gracie insisted. "Mommy's favorite color is green."

Coach Taylor looked at his daughter quizzically. "I thought it was yellow."

The saleswoman laughed again. "You better take your daughter with you when you go anniversary shopping. How long have you been married?" She studied Gracie. "Six years?"

Coach Taylor grimaced. "Ma'am, I've been married over twenty years now. I think I know my own wife's favorite color. I manage pretty well by her. Most of the time."

The saleswoman looked him up and down and smiled. "Oh, I'm sure you do."

His mouth opened slightly when he realized her implication, which took him a moment, and then he shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot. He also shifted Gracie on his hip. She tightened her little arms around his neck. "Daaaady!" she scolded him. "Yellow is mommy's favorite color for _flowers_. Not for wrapping paper! And red and blue are her favorites for shirts and dresses."

"A'ight," Coach Taylor said, not looking directly at the saleswoman this time. "Wrap it in green wrapping paper for me."

"We only have gold," the woman replied.

As they left the jewelry store, shopping bag in Coach Taylor's left hand and Gracie's little hand in his right, he asked his daughter, "What's mommy's favorite color on me? What color does she like me to wear?"

[***]

"Karen still hasn't called me," Landry muttered.

Julie and Landry had just done some Christmas shopping and were now at a local coffee shop. Matt liked the art work that adorned the walls and Julie liked that it wasn't some corporate, soul-killing chain, so it had become a favorite haunt. Matt was at work now; he always worked Saturdays because it was the busiest day at the gallery. He usually had Sundays and Mondays off, but he was working those days now too in order to earn some overtime before the baby came. Julie had finished her last final exam and no longer had to devote her spare time to studying. She didn't feel like she'd done as well as she wanted; she'd been too tired to study as hard as she usually did, but she was certain she would pass. She would have her degree a semester early.

"I think maybe it's time to take the hint, Landry. Just accept that you two aren't together anymore."

Landry sighed. "Yeah, I guess. She could at least have the grace to _tell_ me though."

"I guess she wants to keep the option open for when you happen to be in town, but you should really consider dating girls your own age anyway."

"Yeah," Landry said. "That's never worked out too well for me." He stuck a finger in the whip cream of his mocha and then licked it off. "Of course, neither did _this_ relationship, come to think of it. Turns out I was just a boy toy for her."

Julie stifled her snort. "You'll find someone in med school," she reassured him. She took a tiny sip of her decaf latte. It was still too hot to truly drink. "I'm looking forward to your New Year's Eve gig."

"I thought you were going to that arty party at the gallery." Landry leaned down and licked the rest of the whip cream until it had faded into a flat, white pool.

"We'll go for an hour or two and then hop over to your thing. But don't be upset if we don't stay long. I don't want to expose the baby to too much loud music, you know."

This pregnancy was going to be her ticket out of every unwanted social obligation, and lately, not too many of them had been wanted. She was finding she increasingly preferred home to social functions, but she enjoyed hanging out with a friend or two or three in a setting like this. As much as she teased him, she was glad to have Landry for company while Matt was at work. She had always liked Landry. He was like the cute puppy that sometimes got on your nerves with all the nipping at your heels, but when it came right down to it, you'd feel a deep sense of loss if the loyal little thing ever went away. "We'll probably stay for a half an hour," she continued. "We're going to ring in the New Year at our apartment because Matt knows I can't make it past eleven anymore. Not in public anyway."

"Cool." Landry nodded. "I'm just glad you'll get to see us." He tested the heat of his mocha with his tongue. Then he looked at her. "The band's getting better, but I feel like something's off…I think it might be the bass player."

"Well don't kick him out of the band now," Julie insisted. "You're staying in his basement."

[***]

"No! Those are mine!" Gracie insisted.

They were sitting in the food court of the mall and Eric had just snagged another one of her french fries. He didn't order them for himself because he had been trying to eat better lately. His cholesterol had been a little high at his last checkup. It seemed unwise to get the fries on top of his bacon cheeseburger. Besides, he could always steal half of Gracie's. Eric slid the fry into his mouth and smiled.

"Sneaky daddy."

He turned and glanced over the food court back to center of the mall where Santa sat. The line had not died down at all in the past hour. He sighed. "You sure you still want to do Santa this year?" he asked. "You could just send a letter."

Tami slid onto the chair at the end of the table between Eric and Gracie and set her bags down. Eric reached down and touched the tip of one handle. She slapped his hand. "No peeking."

"I was just trying to move them out of the way so no one trips over them," he insisted. "The mall's busy."

Tami took the bags, folded down the tops, and shoved them under her chair.

"Is that okay?" Eric asked, motioning to the turkey wrap he'd gotten her at the food court. It had come with a side of carrots and celery and some kind of non-fat ranch dip.

She sighed. "I'll eat it."

"Not what you wanted? I thought you liked those."

"I do. But I'm shopping, hon. I expend a lot of energy when I'm shopping. I was hopping you'd get me a bacon cheeseburger."

He took the bacon cheeseburger he'd bought himself and hadn't yet started to eat and slid it over to her. Then he took her turkey wrap. As he lifted it to his mouth he paused halfway and asked, "This doesn't make me less of a man, does it?"

She smiled. "Taking good care of your woman? No, I don't think so."

[***]

"Movies?" Julie suggested and settled down on the love seat.

"Nah," Landry answered. "I don't see you that often. I don't want to just sit and stare at a screen. Besides. I don't want to go back out in that wind and cold. How can you stand living here?"

Julie shrugged. "You get used to it."

"Do you ever miss Dillon?" Landry plopped down next to her and Julie turned sideways to face him.

"Sometimes. But my parents aren't there anymore. Almost none of my friends are there anymore. I don't really miss Dillon. I miss a memory, you know?"

"Yeah, I know. So what's with the pregnancy?"

"Excuse me?" Julie asked and leaned back away from him.

"Why did you decide…so soon?"

Julie shrugged. "Seemed like a good time. I'm pretty much done with my B.A., I've got this part-time work I can do from home so I can stay home with the baby. We're moving into a new place next month."

"You don't sound that excited."

"I am and I'm not," Julie admitted. "I want this. _We_ want this. But I think it's just finally, _really_ starting to hit us both how _not_ easy this is going to be."

[***]

"And I want a pony."

"So that's it?" Santa asked. "Just a bazooka, a tank, an indoor bowling alley, and a pony?"

Gracie nodded and slid off Santa's lap. "Good luck, Dad," Santa muttered as Eric followed a skipping Gracie back into the mall.


	13. Chapter 13

**Author's Note: **Thanks all for the comments on the last chapter. A few of them gave me ideas that inspired me to insert another chapter I hadn't planned on writing, so I hope you enjoy this originally unplanned chapter addition...

**C****HAPTER THIRTEEN**

While Coach Taylor could endure hours in a cold and muddy field, he wore out rather quickly in the marble hallways of the mall. Gracie, for her part, would typically deteriorate into asking for everything in sight. Dean Taylor had foreseen both possibilities and had insisted on separate cars.

While Tami continued her shopping, Gracie hummed herself a tune in the backseat of her father's SUV. Coach Taylor drove on, sun glasses shielding him from what little light escaped the largely blocked winter Philadelphia sun, listening to sports radio.

"So how did Ju-ju get pregnant?" Gracie asked. The girl, though not yet five, had an extensive vocabulary, fine pronunciation, and good grammar, but she still called her sister what she had when she was one.

"Uh…well…" Coach Taylor answered. Tami had insisted that they would answer whatever questions Gracie asked about sex immediately as they arose in "simple, direct, technical, and age-appropriate ways." Eric had nodded absently, having every intention of leaving any such question answering to Tami. But Tami wasn't in the car. She wasn't even nearby.

Gracie knew quite a bit already. She knew babies came out of a woman, somehow or other, either through an operation in which the womb was cut open or through the vagina. Tami had insisted on "appropriate terminology" for body parts, which had caused some consternation at preschool. Coach Taylor had received a call in his office regarding Gracie one day. The preschool director told him that Jacob was going around shouting the word "vagina," "vagina," "vagina," over and over, and when apprehended, the boy _claimed_ to have heard it from a one Gracie Belle Taylor. "But," the teacher said confidently, "I know that can't be true." Coach Taylor had stuttered and finally informed her that it probably _was_ true, at which point she backpedaled and said, simply, "Well, can you just ask her not to go around saying that to the other kids?" Coach Taylor had agreed and asked Tami to handle it, and Dean Taylor had, but not without first flying into a tizzy over the fact that it should be an issue at all.

Gracie also knew a pregnancy lasted about nine months. She knew that, in some mysterious way, both a mommy and daddy were required to produce a baby. She also knew a daddy did not have to stick around and could be out of the picture even before a baby was born. (Educational thing, friendship.) She even knew a woman could "take a medicine" so as not to have a baby. But so far, she had never yet actually asked _how_ a woman _got_ pregnant.

"Why don't you ask your mama that when she gets home?"

"Why don't you just tell me?" Gracie replied.

"Uh…because mommies know more about that stuff."

"It takes two to tango."

"What?" Coach Taylor switched off the radio. "What do you mean by that?"

"I don't know. That's what mommy always says."

"Yeah…well…okay, a man and a woman decide to tango, and then the woman gets pregnant."

"What's tango?"

Coach Taylor ran a hand through his hair. "It's a…special type of dance…mommies and daddies…_only_ mommies and daddies…should do. Or people who _want_ to be mommies and daddies, I mean. Or who are _prepared_ to be mommies and daddies at least. And your mother would want me to tell you that you should only tango with someone you love."

"Can you tango with someone you don't love?"

"Uh…you _can_. It's just not advisable."

"Why?" Gracie asked.

"Well, because…emotional stuff…and if the tango makes a baby, and the person doesn't love you and leaves, that'll be harder."

"Why?" Gracie asked.

"Because it's harder to raise a kid alone than with two people."

"Why?"

"Well, because…money…time…moral support…stuff."

"How does the tango make the baby get in the womb?"

Coach Taylor took off his sun glasses and rubbed his eyes. "Well…you should really ask your mom."

"I'm asking _you_."

"Yeah, but - "

"_How?_" Gracie insisted, sternly. She sounded very like her mother sometimes.

"Well, the sperm fertilizes the egg." There. Simple. Technical. Direct. Like Tami said she wanted. He didn't know how age appropriate it was.

"Hmmm…" Gracie said. "Hmmmm…."

He realized he'd made a mistake. She was bound to ask what a sperm was, and how it got into the egg, and so forth and so on.

"Hmmm…." She repeated. "Interesting." Then, to his great relief, she said, "Can we listen to my music?"

He normally told her no – he could hardly tolerate those awful songs she wanted to play – but now, he instantly switched on her CD. "Brush, brush, brush, brush, brush your teeth…" Gracie sung along.

[***]

"Dan, it's Eric." Eric was in his home office on his cell phone. Dan was Eric's best friend in Philadelphia. They'd first met at an insufferable Braemore cocktail party, because Dan's wife Eden was a Shakespearian professor, and the two men had retreated to smoke cigars, mock the course offering titles, and mourn their trophy husband status together. Dan was a volunteer rifle coach at a local high school, but his primary duty was that of stay-at-home Dad. "Listen, my daughter wants a bazooka for Christmas - "

"Well what do you expect?" Dan shouted.

"Uh…I…"

"I'm not talking to you," Dan hastened. "That's what happens when you wrestle. Someone always gets hurt. So be prepared. Shake it off." Dan had two twin boys, a little older than Gracie, named Othello and Coriolanus (which were even worse than a name like Lance, Coach Taylor thought. Or was it Landon? What _was_ that kid's name?) "If you're gonna wrestle, then you don't get to whine when you get – oh, oh damn. That's a lot of blood. How did that happen? Eric, I'll call you back."

Eric sat silently, and a little worried, at his desk for the next few minutes. His cell phone rang, and when he saw the screen said it was Dan, he asked immediately, "Everything okay?"

"Yeah, Cory just hit the corner of the table when he was wrestling with O. It's just a surface wound. All cleaned up and bandaged. No need for an ER trip."

"Uh…good to hear." Coach Taylor had sometimes regretted that he'd never had a son of his own, but then he would hang out at Dan's house for a while, and he'd be reminded of all the advantages of having daughters. "Anyhow, Gracie really wants a bazooka for Christmas. She keeps saying bazooka, bazooka, and I was wondering if you had any ideas."

"Well, my friend, I know you're from Texas and all, but Pennsylvania gun laws are a little bit stricter."

"It's legal to own a bazooka in Texas?" Eric asked.

"I was joking with you. You want a suggestion for a toy, I assume."

"Yeah."

"You could get her a real rifle, though. I'm getting Cory and O theirs this year. I won't take them shooting with me for the first time until they're eight or nine, and of course they can't officially _own_ the rifles until they're eighteen, but I'm _getting_ them this year. Teach them about it, let them do a little dry firing, then straight in the gun safe. It'll give them something to look forward to."

"Uh…yeah…no…that wouldn't fly with Tami." Dan made an mhmmm sound. "Eden's okay with that?" Eric asked.

"Well…" Dan conceded, "I haven't precisely _discussed_ it with Eden yet. You know, sometimes it's better to ask forgiveness than permission."

"Yeah. I've tried that approach a few times, but I'm finding sometimes it's easier just not to do whatever I planned to do at all."

Dan laughed. "Well, there is that. I think Eden will understand though. She knows it's important to me to teach them to use a gun properly and safely, since they're in the house and the boys are getting to be that age where they could actually physically manage...Hey, by the way, I bought Gracie a beautiful necklace for Christmas." Eric shook his head. He'd never gotten used to Dan's sudden shifts of thought. "She's going to love it. It's carved out of an actual bullet, but it looks like a blooming flower."

Eric laughed. "Is that safe? Lead and all?"

"It's fine. The designer uses un-fired components and doesn't extract them from complete rounds." When Eric made a puzzled sound, Dan continued, "That means it's lead free."

"Where do you find something like that?"

"At a gun show."

"They sell jewelry at gun shows?"

"Sure. So, a bazooka, huh?" Dan asked. "You could go with a water bazooka, but I find those just end up lying in the yard, covered in mud, and eventually run over by the lawn mower. I'd go with the Nerf bazooka. Of course, then the foam bullets just end up all over the living room and eaten up by the vacuum cleaner. But you can get yourself one too and have some pretty epic battles."

"That would drive Tami crazy." Coach Taylor smiled mischievously. "But it could be kind of fun."

"Better than playing tea part, right?"

Eric nodded silently to himself. "Okay. Nerf Bazooka. Thanks."

[***]

When Coach Taylor walked into the kitchen a few minutes later, Tami was making dinner and Gracie was holding a spoon and opening the refrigerator. The little girl pulled out an egg and began tapping on it with the spoon.

"What are you doing?" Tami asked her.

"I'm trying to figure out how the spoon gets in the egg," she answered.

"What?" Tami asked.

"Daddy says a woman gets pregnant when the spoon gets in the egg, and I want a little sister to go with my niece or nephew, so you and daddy should tango while I get the spoon in the egg." She hit the egg again, and it broken open, the yolk and white oozing all across her hand. "Does that count as in?" she asked.

Tami narrowed her gaze at Eric. He swallowed. "I said sperm, not spoon."

"Why were you talking about sperm at all?" his wife asked.

"What's _sperm_?" Gracie asked.

Coach Taylor tiptoed backward out of the kitchen. "Mommy will explain everything," he said, and then turned on his heels and left.

[***]

Tami cuddled up next to Eric in bed. "The next time Gracie has questions about pregnancy, send her straight to me first."

"Believe me, I tried. She kept asking."

"Well, now you opened a whole can of worms, and I had to field all that."

"I just did what you told me to. Simple, direct, technical - "

Tami sighed. "I'm sure you tried your best, hon. You're a good daddy."

He raised his eyebrows. "That's it? You're not still irritated with me?"

She turned to face him and slid a hand under his shirt. "It's hard to be irritated with a man who will give up his bacon cheeseburger for me." She kissed his cheek, slid her hand a little lower, and hooked a finger into the waist band of his boxers. Then she kissed his lips.

"Well, there's plenty more bacon cheeseburgers where that one came from."

She laughed. "Don't get the wrong impression. You can't just give me a cheeseburger and expect to turn me on. You'd have to recreate all the circumstances, and it would have to be part of a selfless act of love, without the expectation of sex in return."

"Huh. I just…though you wanted my cheeseburger. So I gave it to you."

She giggled and kissed his ear. "That's what I love about you, babe." She said.

"What?" he asked, brow furrowed in confusion.

"That you don't even know what I love about you. Now shut up and make love to me."


	14. Chapter 14

**CHAPTER FOURTEEN**

Shelley eased into the pew next to her brother-in-law. Tami was glad they had one relative joining them for the Christmas holiday at least.

"Thanks for trying to lose me on the way to church, Eric," Shelley muttered.

"Why did you insist on taking your own car anyway?"

"I have to do some shopping after."

"On Christmas Eve?" Eric asked. "You couldn't plan ahead a little?"

Tami shushed them.

Shelley was so squished into the crowded pew that she was practically on Eric's lap. "Cozy, huh?" she asked him.

"Well, if you hadn't been late…"

The church was packed with regular churchgoers as well as people who, like Shelley, only set foot inside a church for funerals, weddings, and the two big Christian holidays. This was a special late afternoon family service, and the church was bustling with restless children. Presumably there would be a more solemn candlelit service later in the evening. Shelley whispered, "Where's Gracie?"

"She's in the back because she's in the thing," Eric whispered back.

Shelley soon learned what "the thing" was as the congregation rose collectively to the intensifying sound of the music and a pageant of children dressed as shepherds walked down the center aisle, following the holy family of Mary and Joseph and a rather plump, probably six-month-old would-be baby Jesus. Shelley spied her niece and clapped her hands together gleefully. "She's adorable!"

Eric nodded proudly.

After the pageant and readings, Gracie, still in shepherd's costume, squeezed back into the entirely full pew and climbed up into Shelley's lap.

[***]

"Sex So Good She'll Think She's with Two and a Half Men," Landry read.

"What?" Matt asked. He and Landry were standing at the checkout counter waiting to be able to set down their case of beer and the Chunky Monkey ice cream Matt had been sent to retrieve for his wife. The woman in front of them appeared to be stockpiling for the apocalypse. There were a sad cast of characters in the convenience mart on this bitter-cold Christmas Eve.

Landry, true to his word, had spent the past three weeks in his bass player's basement, but he was now staying with Matt and Julie until New Year's day. The band was breaking up after their New Year's Eve gig. In the midst of a heated argument at their rehearsal last night, Landry had let it slip that they would be better off with a new bass player. The observation had cost him his living quarters, and although the bass player had been pacified enough to agree to finish out the final Chicago gig, he was quitting after that. The drummer had gotten angry at Landry for driving the bass player to quit, and he too insisted he'd be quitting after New Year's. Landry supposed that perhaps these unfortunate circumstances were a sign that he ought to kick off the new year by studying for his MCAT's. He would start med school next fall.

"That's what the headline on that _Men's Health_ magazine says," Landry explained. "Sex So Good She'll Think She's with Two and a Half Men."

"Gross." Matt frowned. "Which half of the man? I'm imagining a bloody body severed at the waist."

Landry laughed. "I think it's a play on the title of that show. You know that TV show? Two and a Half Men?"

"_Ugh._ God! That's even grosser!" Matt exclaimed. "Isn't the half man a _kid_?"

"Sex so good she'll think she must be either a pedophile or an axe murderer." Landry's laugh caused the woman in front of them to turn around and size him up. She eyed him suspiciously as she gathered three bags in to each hand.

Matt shook his head. "What moron came up with that headline?" He set the beer and ice cream down on the now exposed counter. Landry picked up the _Men's Health_ and tossed it on top of the beer. "Why are you getting that?" Matt asked.

"Just because it's a bad headline doesn't mean the tips are bad. Besides, I like to look at the workout plans."

Matt smirked.

"And the Victoria Secret ads," Landry added.

"Is that all?" The cashier asked. "Just the beer, the ice cream, and the magazine?"

"Oh, yeah…" Landry said, blushing and tossing a box of condoms next to the ice cream.

Matt looked at the condoms and then looked at Landry. On the way out, holding the beer and ice cream and shoving his shoulder against the door to open it, Matt said, "I realize you're a rock star and all, man, but…you're absolutely not bringing any girls back to the apartment."

"Of course not," Landry answered as they hit the sidewalk and began strolling back toward the loft. "You've got no privacy in that loft. I'd go to her place. It's just, these gigs can get pretty wild. What can I say? Girls like guitar players. And Karen and I are officially over. Merry Christmas to me!"

Matt shook his head. "Sorry, dude. You can't catch a break."

Landry took the rolled up magazine and waved it in front of Matt's face. "Want this for Julie?"

"No thanks. I don't think I'm going to have much use for those tips for the next few months. Julie just wants to sleep all the time lately."

"And don't forget you've got to wait six weeks after the baby is born."

Matt shifted the case of beer to his other hand. "And you know this because...?"

"I know things," Landry insisted. "I'm educated. What's up with that, by the way?"

"Up with what?"

"You guys deciding to have a baby already?"

Matt stepped behind Landry to let another pedestrian pass and then resumed his place beside his friend. "I'm in a good place job wise. We've been married over a year. We want to have all three of our kids before Julie's 30, so…" He shrugged. "Seemed like a good time."

"Then why don't you seem more enthusiastic? You sound…underwhelmed. So did Julie when I talked to her about it."

"I don't know…I think Mrs. Taylor was kind of sort of encouraging to Julie, but then also kind of gave her a rundown on all the challenges of having a kid before you're _fully established_. And when Julie's dad talked to me about it, he basically told me my life is over."

"Because he's going to kill you?" Landry asked. "Even though you're married?"

Matt snorted. "No, because a baby changes everything. When Julie first told me I was really excited. But after I talked with Coach…not so much."

"What? Coach Taylor burst your bubble? Impossible. He's such a happy-go-lucky guy." Landry put a hand on Matt's shoulder. "Dude, don't listen to him. A leprechaun could show up on the football field handing out bags of gold and Coach would say," Landry imitated Coach Taylor's voice, exaggerating its gruffness and volume, "'Son, do you feel like you deserve a bag of gold today? Because _I_ don't feel like _I_ deserve a bag of gold today.'"

Matt smiled and Landry let his hand drop. "Matt my friend, this baby is a bag of gold, and Coach Taylor can't make you hand it back."


	15. Chapter 15

**CHAPTER FIFTEEN**

"I brought pecan pie," Shelley announced as she entered the Taylors' foyer an hour and a half after the couple returned from the Christmas Eve family service. She held the pie in one hand and two shopping bags full of wrapped gifts in the other.

"Hallelujah!" Tami she said as she took the pie from Shelley's hand. "This stuff is so good. Where did you buy it?"

"I didn't buy it!" Shelley exclaimed defensively. "I made it."

"Seriously, Shell, where do they sell this stuff?'

Shelley sighed. "The Perfect Pie Gourmet. Between Baltimore" – where Shelley now lived - "and Phili."

"Well thanks for bringing it," Tami said, patting her shoulder.

Shelley followed her sister into the kitchen, and Tami promptly cut herself a piece of pecan pie. Shelley looked down at the pie Tami had just slid onto a plate. "Don't want to wait until after dinner for that?"

Tami shook her head.

"Well, thanks for having me for Christmas Eve. It's kind of nice living so close together. We're still in different states now but it's so much shorter a drive than when we were both in Texas!"

"I know. It's weird. Eric and I took a family road trip on a three-day weekend, and we drove through four states in one day."

Over dinner, Gracie asked, "When are we opening gifts?"

"Like I told you," Eric said slowly and sternly, "Christmas morning. After Santa comes."

"But Aunt Shelley already has gifts for me to open!"

"Christmas morning!" Eric insisted.

"Oh, come on, Eric. Don't be a Grinch," Shelley insisted. "She can open family gifts tonight and Santa's tomorrow."

Eric's eyes widened and he bit down on his back teeth.

"Yay!" Gracie said. "Thanks Aunt Shelley!"

[***]

Matt settled down on the love seat next to Julie and handed her the pint of Chunky Monkey with a spoon already wedged into it. Landry took the only other seat, a narrow armchair, which he pulled around next to the love seat so he could see the laptop they'd set up on the coffee table. Matt slid _A Christmas Story_ into the CD-Rom of the computer and began to start the movie.

"You guys seriously need a real television," Landry said.

"We'll get one after we move," Julie replied, taking a small bite of the ice cream and then licking the spoon. "I put the pizza in the oven five minutes ago. It should be ready in twelve."

"Are you really going to eat that entire pint by yourself?" Landry asked.

"Well I can't play your drinking game," Julie complained. "If you guys are going to take a drink every time they say Red Ryder, then I'm going to take a bite of my Chunky Monkey."

"Fair enough," Landry conceded as Matt sat down next to Julie and put his arm around her.

Julie snuggled in against him. He smiled at her, kissed her forehead, and whispered, "Merry Christmas." His free hand he put on her stomach, and then he bent down and whispered, "Merry Christmas to you, too."

Julie smiled, covered his hand with hers, and settled her head against Matt's just as, on the laptop screen, Ralphie's face was diffused with awe as he beheld, for the very first time, the Red Ryder BB Gun in the window of the department store.

Landry pointed to the screen. "You see that, Julie? His mom thinks he'll shoot his eye out. But sometimes you just have to ignore all of the fretting and worrying and seize your dream no matter what your mom thinks, right?"

Julie nodded, a smile growing across her face. "Right." Then her smile faltered. "Of course, he does end up shooting that icicle and getting hit in the eye."

Landry shrugged. "But he survives. That's the thing. It's just a little bit of pain. He doesn't lose his eye. It's nothing like the horror his mother fears it'll be. It turns out to be just a little bit of hurt and a whole lot of fun."

[***]

Eric scrubbed the plate fiercely.

"Hon, you're going to scratch that up," Tami warned him. He'd volunteered to do the dishes, which Tami knew meant he needed to get a little distance from Shelley before he exploded.

"You know, babe," he said, "it would be nice if when your sister decided to undermine my authority with our daughter, you stepped up and told her to cut it the hell out."

"This isn't about your authority, Eric. It's about your rigid inability to flex your traditions."

He shoved a plate with a clang into the dishwasher. "Traditions don't flex, Tami. By definition. That's why they're traditions."

"Well Shelley and I had different Christmas traditions than you growing up. And you know I flexed mine for over twenty years to meet yours because it was so damn important to you. But you can flex yours one year! One year!" She slapped the glasses she had brought in down on the counter. "We're not waiting until tomorrow morning. We're opening the family presents tonight," she insisted. "All of them." She strutted from the kitchen.

[***]

Landry wiped a dribble of tomato sauce from his chin while Julie nibbled at the tip of her pizza.

"That's going to give you terrible heart burn," Matt warned her. Prior to being pregnant, she'd never experienced heart burn. The first time she'd felt it, she'd woken Matt up in the middle of the night crying and saying she thought she was having a heart attack. When she described the pain, he laughed and told her to drink a glass of milk.

In _A Christmas Story_, Ralphie's mom had just "accidentally" broken the leg-shaped lamp. "Reminds me of the time my mom accidentally put my dad's Dallas Cowboys sweatshirt in the giveaway bag," Julie observed.

"She did that to Coach and got away with it?" Landry asked.

"She's not one of his players," Julie answered. "She can get away with a lot. He grumbles and complains, but I think he's a little bit afraid of her sometimes."

"I believe it," Matt said. "I'm a little bit afraid of her sometimes."

Landry laughed. "Like that time when you and Julie were dating and she caught you buying condoms?"

Matt nodded solemnly. Julie shook her head, as though to say, _Boys, boys, boys._ Matt and Landry both looked at her. "Why aren't _you_ ever afraid of her?" Landry asked.

Julie shrugged.

"Because you're so much like her," Landry surmised.

"I am not!" Julie insisted. "Not at all!" She paused. "Well, in _some_ ways…maybe. She's not a bad person to be like."


	16. Chapter 16

**CHAPTER SIXTEEN**

Eric emerged from the kitchen and sat in his recliner. The scowl hadn't quite left his face. Gracie was waiting eagerly by the softly glowing Christmas tree, and the fire flickered a few feet away. "Okay! Daddy's here!" she said, and immediately grabbed one of her gifts from Aunt Shelley. Eric shifted testily in his chair, but he didn't protest.

Gracie shredded the paper in a matter of seconds, revealing a foot-tall tank with a miniature doll crammed in the hatch. The doll had a purse slung over its slender arm. "I love it, Aunt Shelley!" Gracie effused. She touched the fake sequined, hot pink, plastic purse. "What kind of gun does she have in there?"

Shelley smiled and shook her head. "You tell me. All I know is that I have connections with Santa, and I heard you wanted a tank and a bowling alley."

When Gracie heard bowling alley, her eyes widened and she grabbed the next present from her Aunt Shelley, which did indeed turn out to be a plastic bowling ball and pin set. Shelley laughed when Gracie unceremoniously unzipped the container and dumped all the contents onto the floor.

"Okay," Eric announced. "We'll save the rest of the presents for tomorrow."

"No, we're doing all the family gifts tonight!" Gracie insisted. "Aunt Shelley SAID so."

Eric closed his eyes and gritted his teeth. He opened them again when Gracie lay a present on his lap. "From Aunt Shelley," she said.

"I'm not opening it until tomorrow morning," he insisted.

"Eric!" Tami scolded.

He leveled his eyes defiantly at her. "I'm not."

"Well, that's too bad," Tami said. "Because I had a special gift for you I was going to let you unwrap tonight after we all went to bed, but since you don't like to unwrap gifts on Christmas Eve, I guess I won't be giving it to you."

Shelley snorted.

"That's mature," Eric said. "Real mature." But he started unwrapping Shelley's gift.

He held up the revealed box. "What the - ?"

"- It's an action figure," Shelley said.

"A _Jesus_ action figure?" he asked.

"With _gliding_ action. So he can walk on water." Shelley smirked. "Since you're such a religious guy." She giggled and Tami eyed her circumspectly.

"Yeah, that's me," Eric muttered. "A regular Pat Robertson." He turned the package over and read the back. He was smiling lightly and occasionally chuckling as he read the textual parody.

"Well, you guys go to church almost _every single_ Sunday," Shelley said. "What's up with that? It's not like anyone is dragging you anymore."

"Well I like church," Eric grumbled.

Tami raised an eyebrow. "Even though you doze off during the sermon half the time?"

"Hey, it doesn't need to be _that_ long," Eric defended himself. "But you know I like the tradition. It's…comforting. Being a part of something bigger and more important than just yourself. That's what I like about football too. And my family, come down to it."

Tami sighed. "I miss having Julie here."

"I know, babe," he said sympathetically and smiled softly at her.

"I guess it makes sense you'd go to church," Shelley said to her brother-in-law. "With all your hang-ups about football traditions and Christmas traditions and - "

"- Nothing wrong with tradition," Eric insisted.

"Traaaaadition!" Shelley sung. "Tradition!"

"Hey, tradition is the democracy of the dead," Eric replied. "Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about."

"What?" Shelley asked. "That sounds…educated."

"I'm educated."

"Not like _that_ you're not," Shelley insisted. "Where'd you get that?"

"I don't know," Eric admitted. "I came across it in _Bartlett's Quotations_ when I was trying to find something for a banquet speech." He read a couple more lines on the back of the Jesus action figure box and chortled. "Where did you find this?" he asked.

"That's my little secret," Shelley insisted with a smile.

"Can I play with it, Daddy?" Gracie asked.

"No!" Tami and Eric exclaimed in unison.

"Why?" Gracie asked with a high pitched whine.

"Because it's just seems a little bit…sacrilegious," Tami explained.

"Sacralicious?" Gracie asked.

"Wait until you open the next one, Eric." Shelley smirked and pointed to a package under the tree. "It's a Moses action figure. With removable stone tablets."

"Well," Tami said. "At least it's not like that Easter when she brought Julie all those edible chocolate crucifixes."

Shelley laughed and clapped her hands. "Your face, Eric, that Easter. It was priceless! Hey, nothing like the taste of death!"

Eric sighed and shoved the Jesus action figure in the corner of his recliner.

"Be sure not to take it out of its original box," Shelley told him. "It's a limited edition. It could seriously go up in value."

Gracie was sliding a package onto Shelley's lap now. "From Daddy," she said.

Shelley looked from the present to Eric with a glint in her eye. "You never get me as good as I get you. You just can't win, Eric."

"I wasn't aware it was a competition," Tami said.

"Of course it is," Shelley insisted. "Eric understands that." She very slowly unwrapped the paper, sliding her finger carefully beneath the wrapping.

"Geez," Eric muttered. "Can we get on with it?"

"I like to save the wrapping paper," Shelley insisted. At last she pulled out several blank VHS tapes.

"So you'll always have one," Eric said. "And never have to use my game tape again."

"Or," Shelley suggested, her teeth flashing whitely in his direction, "you could just enter the 21st century along with the rest of us and get a DVR."

[***]

The computer froze up and would have to be rebooted if they were going to finish _A Christmas Story_, but they were out of both beer and ice cream. "Gift exchange time!" Landry announced and disappeared to pull something out of his suitcase.

"Let me guess," Matt said when he returned. "Copies of your CD?"

"Ha, ha. Very funny." Landry handed Julie a thin, square, wrapped packaged that did indeed look very much like it contained a CD. It was addressed to both her and Matt.

When she unwrapped it, she held out the case with an indulgent smile. "Seriously, Landry?"

"It's not _my_ CD. It's a computer CD. I burned a slideshow on there. All the photos I took of you and Matt while we were in high school."

"Is the slideshow background music one of your songs?" Julie teased.

"No," he said just as sarcastically. "It's the song you and Matt danced to at your wedding."

"That's actually really sweet, Landry," Julie said, throwing her arms open to her friend. "Thanks."

[***]

Eric had just placed three boxes under the tree. Against the wall he leaned a giant Nerf bazooka with a bow on it.

"You got her the bazooka?" Tami asked.

"Of course I did," Eric insisted. Then he set out a stuffed pony, also with a bow on it. Gracie's requests to Santa were now fulfilled, if not quite in the way she had intended.

He headed for the stockings next. He stuffed Tami's stocking with small, wrapped presents, moved onto Gracie's stocking, and then began to fill Shelley's.

Shelley watched him and said, "I hope you don't stuff the entire thing with airplane booze bottles and condoms like you did that one Christmas we were all in San Antonio." They'd all been much younger back then, and Eric had been more inclined to mock Shelley's habits than he was once he had his own daughter. Somehow the birth of his little Jules had brought forth his inner prude.

"Don't worry," Eric said. "I'm not. I'm putting lotto tickets and slim jims in there too." Eric's own stocking remained empty at the far end of the fireplace. He looked at a little forlornly.

"Don't worry, sugar," Tami said. "Santa will stuff it later."

Eric crumpled up the now empty plastic bag and took two bites of one of the cookies Gracie had left out for Santa on a plate on the coffee table.

He swallowed and put a quarter of the cookie back on the plate. He drank all but an ounce of the glass of milk. "I'm going to bed to read," he announced, looking pointedly at Tami, but she didn't offer to follow him. "Babe, don't forget to the nibble the carrots Gracie left for the reindeer."

"Too healthy for you, hon?" she teased.

"No. I just thought you might benefit from a few vegetables after your two and half pieces of pecan pie."

Tami smirked at him before he walked down the hall to their bedroom. She turned to her sister and simultaneously raised the wine bottle they'd been sharing and her eyebrows. "Sure," Shelley said, answering the silent question and extending her glass. Tami filled her glass.

"It'll be kind of fun to be here in the morning and see how my niece reacts to the presents and the half-eaten stuff. Does she still believe in Santa? No kids in pre-K have talked her out of it?"

"The other day she said to Eric, 'I don't believe in Santa Claus, but I believe he'll still bring me presents.' Eric's going to do this stuff," Tami waved at the plate and the presents, "as long as he can. He loves it."

"Really? I know he honors tradition and all, but he really doesn't strike me as a jolly kind of guy." She grimaced. "He's so serious and irritable and prudish sometimes."

Tami narrowed her eyes and Shelley. "There's nothing Eric loves more than seeing his girls happy," she insisted. "He wants to keep the magic alive as long as he can." She smiled affectionately. "He was a little bit heartbroken when Julie stopped believing." She glanced around the room. "He's very sweet that way. Eric's…he's got a good heart, Shelley. I know you don't like to give him a lot of credit, but - "

"You know I love Eric, Tami. I give him a hard time, but I'm not an idiot. Believe it or not, but I'm not. I can tell he's been a good husband to you, and a good father to the kids."

Tami held her wine glass up and turned it so she could look at the lights from the Christmas tree reflecting in dazzling sparks through the red liquid. She lowered it again. "He makes me happy," she said, and smiled to herself.

[***]

Eric closed his book when Tami came to bed. She slid in next to him and smiled. "Thank you for my Christmas present, hon," she said. "It was a very pretty necklace." Eric had caved and allowed _all_ of the family presents to be opened, including his to his wife. "I can't wait to wear it tomorrow. What made you pick it out?"

"I had an advisor." He smiled and kissed her. "So," he murmured, "is it time for me to unwrap my present?"

"Don't you want to honor tradition and wait until Christmas morning?"

"I can be flexible."

She laughed. "I'm tired, hon. I just had two and a half glasses of wine. I'm not going to be much fun." She kissed his cheek. "You can unwrap your present Christmas night." She snuggled down under the covers and closed her eyes.

"Wait a minute! You can't hold out a carrot, get me to perform, and then just jerk it away."

"Sugar, that's how it's done. They don't ever actually _give_ the donkey the carrot, you know. They just dangle it in front of him until he's carried the entire load. And there's going to be a lot of post-Christmas clean up I need to get done tomorrow afternoon."

He sighed and switched off the lamp. "You know you can be really difficult sometimes." He slid down under the covers and put an arm around her.

"Yep, but you wouldn't love me if I were perfect. That's what I realized about you when Shelley was listing your vices."

"What are you talking about?" Eric asked. "I _am_ perfect."

She laughed and said goodnight.


	17. Chapter 17

**CHAPTER SEVENTEEN**

Mrs. Taylor did not tease her husband with the expectation of a gift all Christmas day. Rather, after the surprise presents from Santa were opened, the stockings dumped, and a large breakfast consumed, Tami asked her sister to watch Gracie so that she and Eric could "nap." She told her, "Gracie gets up so early on Christmas morning…we really need to go back to sleep, and you know how to function on so few hours."

"What's that mean?" Shelley replied tempermantenly. "It's not like I party as much as I - " She glanced at Eric, who was hovering expectantly in the hall that led to the bedroom, and said, "Ah. Yeah. Y'all really need a nap don't you?" Eric looked down.

When they got to the bedroom, he insisted on putting on music and said, "You don't think Shelley knows we're…"

"No, Shelley has no idea we ever have sex. She thinks Julie and Gracie are adopted. Do you want to unwrap your present or not?"

He smiled and nodded and she disappeared into the master bath, reemerging in a silky, dark red, sexy piece of lingerie with quite a few ties. There was definitely some unwrapping to do. Afterwards he pulled her back against his chest and murmured. "That was the best Christmas present ever."

"Even after twenty-three years?"

He kissed her neck. "Some things get better with time."

Tami couldn't agree more. This year in particular had been an especially good one for physical connection. She concurred with a contended murmur, but then she teased him a little further, "You're still doing all that work I wanted you to do, even if you got your carrot early."

"I know," he agreed. "But don't you think maybe we really should take that nap first? I wouldn't want to be a liar."

She chuckled, snuggled in, and closed her eyes. "I appreciate your honesty, hon."

[***]

Julie was glad Landry was staying with them until New Year's Day. It meant Matt wouldn't try for sex; there simply wasn't enough privacy in this little studio apartment of theirs, and she hated rebuffing him, but the truth was that, between the exhaustion and the nausea inspired by the pregnancy, she just hadn't been in the mood.

This afternoon, when she'd called her mother to ask about leg cramps and how long they lasted and if they got worse, her mother had given her some completely unsolicited advice on the _other_ matter. Julie had not asked - had not even hinted - about any struggles in the bedroom, but her mother had, as though possessed of some eerie sixth sense, suddenly offered her the bit of obvious information that libido could decline during pregnancy, as well as at other stressful points in a marriage.

"But sometimes sex is like exercise," her mom had said before Julie could change the subject. "You may not feel like doing it, but you know it's healthy and good for you, so you just decide to do it anyway. And gradually as you start to do it, you start to get into it, and by the time you're done, you feel so much better, and you're glad you did."

"Mom - "

"- After Gracie was born, I didn't feel at all ready to get back into it, and I put your dad off for a while even after we got the green light from the doctor, but I knew I couldn't keep doing that, because for men love and sex and self-esteem really - "

"- Mom!" Julie had interrupted her, "Ewww! I really don't want to think about you and Da– "

"- Just like you have to keep yourself healthy," her mother had continued despite Julie's obvious discomfort, "You have to keep your marriage healthy."

This from the woman who had once called sex "making love," who had been worried Julie might be doing it without being ready for it, and who had insisted that it absolutely wasn't just one body part going into another body part. But now sex was like exercise? Just _do it_?

"Well, Mom, I've got news for you. I was born post- women's liberation movement, and I am _not_ having duty sex. That is one thing Matt and I will never do."

"It isn't a _duty_, Jules. It's a _gift_ you give your husband."

"I thought you said it was exercise?"

"Well I was trying to explain!" her mother said testily. "How even though you _think_ you don't want to do it _at the moment_, you'll be glad you did."

"Mom, I appreciate the concern, but Matt and I will be fine without the duty sex, okay?"

"It's not - "

"- Bye, Mom. I gotta run."

As soon as she hung up, Julie swore to herself that while her mother might occasionally have duty sex, that would _never ever _be the way things went with her and Matt.

Julie's mom had given her a fairly good model of independent thinking, unfettered opinion-expressing, and feminine strength, but Julie thought her mom was still too much a product of her time and place. Julie wasn't going to be like that – the way her mom had followed her Dad around for his entire career (up until that last, most recent move, when he'd shocked Julie by moving for her mom's career), stayed home with Julie and not worked for fifteen long years (Julie would work part-time for one year while each kid was a baby, and then full-time the rest of the time), almost always made dinner for her dad (Matt was expected to do at least fifty percent of the cooking), and, apparently, sometimes had duty sex. Well, that just wasn't going to be Julie, and good thing Matt didn't expect her to be like that.

At least, that was Julie's initial reaction to the conversation.

In high school, Julie had once broken up with Matt because she feared that, as a couple, they might turn into her parents. The idea of a common life of quiet love, routine, and family obligation had terrified her. There _had_ to be more, she thought. And perhaps there was...but over the next few years, she had come to realize that there could also be less - a _lot_ less. Julie had begun, little by little, to appreciate that her parents weren't a bad model to emulate. They had their disagreements, of course, and neither had scaled mountains or cured cancer, but ultimately they were happy together. They'd built meaningful if simple lives, and they'd created a lasting marriage. In a world where over half of her friends' parents were divorced, Julie's mother and father could rely on one another. They had a constant source of companionship, an ever-present shoulder to cry on, a home to come home to wherever they were.

Julie had perhaps taken that security too much for granted; occasionally, but not often enough, she had realized the value of her usually stable world, of having a mother and father who were there for each other and for her. Yet she hadn't thought much about what went into building and sustaining that world. Both her father and her mother had attempted to lecture her on the matter prior to her marriage, but it hadn't really sunk in. She didn't expect things to be easy, precisely, but she didn't really believe her parents had worked that hard, either. After all, though they might be more open with her than some parents, she had ever been their child, half shielded from their struggles. Their relationship had seemed always simply to pre-exist the world and to subsist by some kind of perpetual motion.

Yet she was a bit older now and married, and about to be a mother herself, and it was beginning to strike Julie just how smart her parents had become in the past two years. Her gut reaction was still to dismiss much of her parents' advice as outdated or out-of-touch, but, lately, she would sometimes find herself pausing. Even while she appeared to push the words away, she would let her parents' advice sink gradually into her mind.


	18. Chapter 18

**CHAPTER EIGHTEEN**

"Be nice to this guy," Matt said of an approaching man who donned a dark red bow tie. "He bought one of my paintings."

Julie smiled in greeting as the man, who had to be three inches shorter than Julie, began to chat with Matt. She tried to feign interest in what he had to say, but it required a monumental effort on her part. She didn't know how her mother had done it for so very many years: she had played the coach's wife and made it look so effortless; she had been able to turn on the smiles in an instant and find the right words in any situation; whenever necessary, she had seemed interested in whatever the boosters or players' parents had to say. Only after the crowds were gone, or perhaps in a secret place or private moment – maybe under a table - would her smile dissolve and her voice grow irritated.

Julie couldn't seem to muster even half her mother's believable enthusiasm. She thought maybe it was because she was of a different generation and therefore less inclined to willingly play the role of prop to her husband. It wasn't that she considered her mother subservient. After all, her father respected her mother and sought her opinion regularly and cowered when he crossed her. It was clear Dad relied on Mom's support and was grateful for it and that Mom provided it out of love for him, but there were brief flashes when Julie suspected that perhaps Mom resented the expectation. Nevertheless, she'd never failed to meet it.

Julie didn't think she could be like that; wasn't sure she _wanted _to be like that. On the other hand, she was gradually coming to understand that marriage involved more than simply showing up, that maybe in any lasting relationship sometimes you really did have to do things you didn't want to do for the sake of the other, and that maybe Matt had been doing such things, without much appreciation, for quite a while. Or maybe it was just the hormones stirring up false guilt. She didn't know. She only knew she couldn't pretend as well as she had wanted to, and that Matt sensed her boredom, politely ended the conversation with the man, and steered her away.

"Sorry," she muttered. "I didn't play the artist's wife very well."

"I don't expect you to play a role," he said. "It's just...some of these people might buy my paintings, you know? Some of them have, and some of them might. But I don't want you to try to be someone you're not. That's not what I'm asking."

"I know. And I'm trying. I just think maybe this whole thing would be a lot easier if I could drink."

After over an hour at the gallery party, Matt and Julie made their polite escape and took the L a few stops to Landry's gig. They arrived just as his band was beginning its set. They lingered toward the back of the crowd, where the music wasn't quite as loud or the smoke quite as suffocating.

Landry caught sight of them, announced that the next song was dedicated to his good friends Matt and Julie, and then launched into a thunderously loud number with nearly indecipherable lyrics. Julie was, however, surprised to find herself noticing Landry's guitar playing. She hadn't really paid much attention to it when casually listening to his CD some months ago, but it had definitely improved. He wasn't going to be famous, but he had some talent. He shouldn't ever give up on the hobby, even when he was a world-famous surgeon.

Despite having just turned 21, Julie soon began to feel like the oldest person in the room. After nodding their heads to the music for about half an hour, she and Matt made their second escape of the evening.

**[***]**

"10….9…8…7…6…5…4…3….2…1."

Julie raised her glass of sparkling cider to Matt's. He hadn't bought champagne for himself; he wasn't about to drink an entire bottle. Besides, he'd had a couple of glasses of wine at the art gallery earlier that evening, and a beer at the New Year's Eve multi-band bash.

Julie was in her pink, plaid, flannel pajamas, and he was in sweats and a Dillon panther's sweatshirt, and both were sitting up in bed. "Happy New Year," she said and kissed him before taking a sip from her glass.

"And now straight to sleep?" he asked with a teasing grin.

"Hey, it's amazing I made it this far. Growing your baby is exhausting."

He smiled, that cute, half curve she loved, that somehow managed to make him look sweet and sarcastic, vulnerable and teasing, all at once.

They'd made it back to the apartment at 11 and knew Landry wouldn't be stumbling in until after well after one. Matt had hinted they should take advantage of Landry's certain absence to make love, and Julie had rebuffed him. He'd taken it pretty well, sitting up with her and vegging in front of the TV for an hour, and then crawling in bed with her and toasting her.

"Hey," she said now, softly, "want to fool around?"

His smile grew instantly. "Do you?"

She nodded her head. "Yeah, I do," she lied.

He leaned in and kissed her, and…after a while…it wasn't a lie anymore.

When they were re-clothed (they knew Landry would be stumbling in sometime, and the loft didn't really have divisions) and cuddling, Julie smiled. She felt good to have made Matt happy, and she was fairly well satisfied herself, though she wished it hadn't all begun with that hint of duty. Part of her still wished to imagine that life could always be one grand romantic adventure, even if the more mature part of her knew there had to be more ordinary than extraordinary moments. There would be flashes of passion again, of course. If tonight had been mostly for Matt, she supposed she could live with that.

"I love you, Julie." Matt pulled her close. He felt warm and comforting in the winter Chicago chill, with only two space heaters to warm the loft.

"I love you, too. I really do, Matt. I hope you know that." She kissed him. "When Landry comes in, tell him to be quiet." She closed her eyes and was asleep in seconds.


	19. Chapter 19

**CHAPTER NINETEEN**

Julie and Matt sat across the table from Coach and Mrs. Taylor. The younger couple held hands as Julie looked from parent to parent. The Taylors had driven up for spring break and had helped them move into their new condo. Everything was now unpacked and situated, and they were having their first family dinner in their new home.

"We've known for a little while, but we wanted to wait to tell you in person," Julie said, "that we've found out the sex of the baby. You're going to have a grandson."

Tami smiled brightly and came over to hug Julie while Eric said, "Say that again."

"A grandson," Matt repeated for Julie.

"A boy?" Eric asked. "You two are having a boy? For real?"

"Does that mean I get a nephew?" Gracie asked.

Matt nodded with a proud smile.

"God that sounds weird," Julie said. "A nephew." She looked at her mom, who was reclaiming her seat. "You two better not have any more kids, because then our son's next aunt will be even younger than he is." It didn't occur to her that, if they did have another kid, it might not be a girl. Coach Taylor produced girls.

"Trust me," Tami said, "That is _not_ happening. We've seen to it."

[***]

Matt pushed his elbow against the side door of the condo leading out from the garage to the front lot. Coach Taylor was parked in the visitor's parking, because the Saracens only owned one parking space in the garage (and one car, which they rarely drove). Matt's father-in-law had said he had something in the SUV he wanted to pass on to his grandson. "I had a hunch you were having a boy," he said, "so I brought it with me."

Matt was pretty sure it was some sentimental football, maybe one Coach himself had played with in high school or college. "You know," Matt said, "there's no guarantee he'll love football, if that's what you're thinking. He may love art instead."

Coach Taylor glanced at him as they arrived at the SUV. "Football _is_ art, son." He unlocked his hatch, lifted it, and did not draw out a football. He patted a long, white box.

"Comics?" Matt asked.

"Yeah, my whole collection from when I was a kid." Coach lifted off the lid and pointed to a stapled set of papers that had clearly been printed on a dot matrix. "That's the inventory," he said. "I'm guessing there may be five or six in there that are actually worth something, but most of them aren't." He reached up and shifted his hat. "Tami's been nagging me to get rid of them for fifteen years. But it's hard to part with something…you know…like that. But…I thought this would be a good time to pass them on. But boys don't really collect comics so much anymore, do they?"

"Sure. I read them," Matt said with an enthusiasm that wasn't entirely genuine. He'd read a few, but he hadn't collected and held onto them like this. Comic collecting wasn't quite as mainstream among his peers as it had probably been among his father-in-law's, but it was obvious to Matt how much this meant to Coach Taylor, to be letting go of a piece of his own childhood like this. He seemed almost proud: proud of Matt and desirous of connecting to both Matt and his future grandson in whatever way he could. And the very fact that he was choosing to reach out with something other than football impressed Matt. "I figure maybe he'd like them," Coach Taylor continued, "since he's probably going to be into art."

Matt tried not to laugh. His father-in-law's concept of art would extend mostly to comics. He smiled instead. "He'll love them," he said. "Thanks, Coach."

Coach Taylor ran a tongue across his lips and nodded. He lifted the box. "You know, I'm okay if you call me Dad. Only if you want, of course. And if you don't…Coach is good."

[***]

Matt lay on his back in the queen-size bed and smiled. They'd slept close together on a full-size bed in the studio, but now that they'd move into the condo, they'd decided to splurge on a bigger bed. Mrs. and Mrs. Taylor were asleep in the second bedroom. Gracie was on their floor in a sleeping bag, so at least Matt wouldn't have to worry about overhearing the bump and grind of his in-laws tonight.

Matt was grateful to have the extra space the condo afforded, but he was also nervous. He had sold two paintings that allowed for a down payment, but they were going to have to tighten the fiscal belt. No more café coffee on the way to work. No more eating out once a week. What else could they cut?

Julie's parents had helped by giving them a "housewarming" gift - $5,000 in saving bonds. Matt's eyes had grown wide. "I expected a plant." He still hadn't gotten accustomed to the way his in-laws helped them from time to time; it wounded his pride a little, because he'd grown up, even as a teenager, as a provider. Yet he hadn't turned the gift away either. He knew he and Julie had gotten in just a little over their heads with the baby and the condo and, truth be told, he was scared about making ends meet. Julie was only going to be working about twenty hours a week for the first year after the baby was born.

All these concerns had inundated his mind when they lay down to bed tonight, but they were now banished. At the present moment, he was still recovering from some energetic (if quiet, because the in-laws _were_ next door) lovemaking.

"Wow," Matt said. "Wow. You hardly want to have sex at all the first trimester and then…"

Julie shrugged, her teeth gleaming in the streetlights that filtered in through the window. "I don't know. What can I say? The nausea is gone and my hormones are going wild."

He reached over and took her hand in his. "How long does this part last?"

"I have no idea. Enjoy it while you can."

He turned and kissed her and, if it were possible, his smile grew even wider. "Oh, I will. I will."


	20. Chapter 20

**CHAPTER TWENTY**

When the sun filtered through the window of their fourth-story condo the next morning, Matt slid a hand over Julie's taut, pregnant belly. She stirred and looked into his warm eyes. His lips were so full that she found it hard not to want to kiss him every time they were face to face, so she leaned in. When the kiss broke, she said, "I told Tyra we're not going to make it to the wedding. I'm really sorry to miss it, but that's around the time I'm due."

"I'm sure she didn't expect you to come," Matt said. "The invitation was just a courtesy."

"I can't believe she didn't at least send an invitation to Landry."

"She couldn't win either way," Matt said. "She's a bitch if she sends it and rubs it into him, and she's a bitch if she snubs him, as far as Landry is concerned."

Julie shook her head. "I just never in a million years would have seen those two getting married."

"Yeah, it's crazy," Matt agreed. How did they even end up hooking up?"

"I don't know. She just said when they were both home in Dillon over Christmas break they ended up hanging out a lot…and that he's changed…and she's changed…and….that's ridiculously fast though. Talk about a whirlwind courtship."

"Do you think she's pregnant?" Matt asked.

"Even if she was I can't imagine she'd marry him."

"Truth is stranger than fiction," Matt said. "I thought about the possibility of Tyra Riggins or a Tyra Clarke…but never, ever a Tyra Williams.

Julie sat up and began digging in the nightstand for her cell phone. "She texted me a photo of her dress. Do you want to see it?"

"I can _pretend_ to want to see it if that'll make you happy."

Julie laughed and shut the drawer she'd just opened. "I guess you're not into dresses."

Matt closed his eyes and settled his cheek against the pillow. "We should try to go back to sleep. It's Sunday. No work today."

The Saraceans did not attend church now that neither had a relative expecting it. Mrs. Taylor had asked them last night what time church would be, and when they had responded that they didn't attend, she'd raised an eyebrow but hadn't said anything. Julie had suggested her mom check the internet if she wanted to find a nearby church, and her father had promptly announced that they could skip this week. There had been no further conversation on the matter, unless it had occurred between Coach and Mrs. Coach behind closed doors.

"I want to get up and write," Julie said.

"I thought you finished that proposal and you aren't getting the stuff you need to write the next one until tomorrow."

"I'm writing a novel."

Matt groaned. "Great," he said. He sat up and the sheet slid down to his waist. Now that he wasn't playing football anymore and wasn't exercising quite as much as he had in high school, he was losing a little of the definition in the muscles of his stomach and chest, but he still looked good. Julie didn't mind if he let himself go just a _little_ bit. It would make her feel better about her own body after the baby was born. She'd known Matt was attractive, of course, but it had become increasingly obvious to her at the last two art shows they'd attended when he'd attracted a little too much attention from several thin, thirty-something women.

"Great?" Julie asked, and then with dripping sarcasm said, "Gee! Thanks for the support!"

"Julie, the last time you were working on a novel, you were up at four in the morning every morning writing and then complaining you were tired at night. I'd come home from work and try to tell you about my day and you wouldn't even notice I was talking to you for the first five minutes, and then when I waved a hand in your face, you'd just say uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh and type the entire time. We go out to eat and you're starring off into space." He lay back down. "I know you love writing. And you're great at it. I'm sure you'll get published one day. It's just not easy on me is all."

"Oh, poor baby. It sucks being married to a creative person, doesn't it? I have no idea what that's like."

He snorted and kissed her. "I love you," he whispered.

"I love you too."

"Our kid's gonna have the creative thing coming from both sides," he said. "I hope baby boy Saracen doesn't do performance art."

"Well," she said, sliding out of bed and dressing, "as long as baby S doesn't smear his naked body with cow dung while sitting on a rainbow-colored wooden stool and then claim it represents the rape of the environment."

They'd had to walk out of that show. They'd only gone in the first place because the gallery owner had asked Matt to evaluate this particular performance artist she'd heard about, because she was thinking of adding a little performance art at the next gallery fundraiser. For days after Matt would tease Julie every time she walked into the kitchen by grabbing some nearby item of food – chocolate sauce, jelly, peanut butter, whatever he could get his hands on – smearing a bit on his cheek, and saying something like, "This represent the perpetual state of neglect of the modern husband. Come lick it off."

He'd done it once in public too, at a restaurant, and they'd both started laughing so loudly that the manager had actually come over and asked them to leave. They'd tripped out on to the streets of Chicago feeling like teenagers in trouble. How long had it been since they were that young? Not long at all, but with all these adult responsibilities…with the knowledge that the coming baby that would turn their lives upside down…they had begun to feel much older than their years, and it had been good to laugh like that again, to laugh like kids.

[***]

Julie was holding her laptop when she entered the living room. Her father was sitting on the couch, his feet up on the coffee table, and flipping through channels. To save money, the Saraceans had decided not to get cable, so he didn't have any ESPN to watch, and apparently he couldn't find anything he liked.

"What are you doing up so early?" Julie asked him, setting her laptop down on the table in the small dining room, which opened onto the living room and was a stone's throw away from the couch. She came and sat down on the couch next to him.

"Couldn't sleep. Gracie is snoring like a chain saw. Your mom says we should put her in a sleep study. We're not sure she's getting enough good sleep. Could explain why she seems so crazy whiny during the day."

"Yeah, that or the fact that she's four and a half."

He nodded. He turned to her and smiled. "A boy, huh? Not that I wouldn't spoil my granddaughter rotten and love her to death."

Julie smiled to see her usually anxious father so happy and proud. "I love you, Dad," she said.

"I love you too, Julie babe. You'll always be my little girl, you know."

"I know."

Julie had wanted this – family. She had seen her parents make it work. But she had also seen at least a few of their struggles (had instigated some of them), and she was beginning to understand why they were worried she hadn't waited longer to have a child. She was going to need to lean on her parents a little bit in the years to come, more than she wanted to, but at least she had parents she _could_ lean on.

Coach Taylor put his arm around his daughter, and she leaned against his shoulder, the way she had as a child.

Baby Boy Saracen would not be born into a mere nuclear family. The littlest Saracen would have Grandma and Grandpa Taylor, Aunt Gracie, great-aunt Shelley, and, Julie prayed, for a little while at least, great-grandma Saracen.

He would be a fortunate child indeed.


	21. Chapter 21

Matt slouched down in the stiff waiting room chair, his hands shoved deep in the long stomach pocket of the sweatshirt that was far too warm for the early Chicago summer, even if it had dipped to 69 degrees today. Still, the sweatshirt gave him something to do with his hands. Behind the row of chairs across from him, Julie put her hands down on the head of a chair and leaned over. "I feel weird," she said. "I think maybe I'm really in labor."

Julie had been scheduled for an induction today, because Baby Boy Saracen (they _still_ hadn't agreed on a name yet) was a bit late in coming. They'd come a half hour before their appointed time—as they were *told* to do—only to be informed that no beds were yet available. They'd now waited an hour and a half.

"I mean, I totally think I could really be going into labor," Julie said.

"Trust me, if you were in labor, you'd know it," Coach Taylor said as he flipped a page of a _Sports Illustrated_ magazine, which he was now reading for the second time.

From beside him, Mrs. Coach turned and raised an eyebrow. "And you know this because…"

Coach Taylor looked at her incredulously. "You think she's in labor?" He turned to look at Julie, who was touching her side and looking puzzled.

"Well, hon," Mrs. Taylor told Julie, "it may just be discomfort. You've been uncomfortable for a while now. But, if not, you'll know for sure soon enough."

The Taylors—or more likely Mrs. Taylor—had insisted on joining them for the big event. Matt doubted his father-in-law had suggested that one, although he did currently have two cigars tucked in the front pocket of his button-down shirt. Matt wondered when Coach thought they were going to smoke those and if he could pretend to like the experience. That cigar he'd shared with Julie's Aunt Shelley over Thanksgiving had made his stomach a little queasy.

Gracie was now with her aunt in some Chicago museum somewhere. Shelley had been given an all-expenses paid Chicago vacation by the Taylors in exchange for her babysitting services.

Julie bent forward again. "I don't know, I think I might really be in labor. Matt, can you go check on the bed?"

"I'm sure they'll tell us when it's ready."

"Just check," Julie said.

"They'll let us know."

"Dad, can you go check?" Julie asked.

Coach Taylor stood up. "Son," he said, "Come here a minute."

Matt followed his father-in-law out of earshot of the women.

"Matt, your wife needs you to be more aggressive in this situation. I know you don't like to make waves, but you've got to be aggressive here, son. Because that's what Julie needs right now. She wants to be able to rely on you here. I'm not going to do it for you."

"Aggressive?"

"Strut up to that front desk and demand they get your wife a room!"

"Strut?"

"Walk firmly," Coach Taylor said.

"But, I mean, they have what they have available. I can't make them make a bed be available if—"

"-Son, pretend you're on the football field." He gestured with a hand toward the front desk. "Pretend that's the end zone, and just do it."

"Yes…Yes, sir," Matt said. He dug his hands a little deeper into his sweatshirt pockets, until his knuckles touched.

Coach Taylor clamped a hand down on his shoulder. "And here's somewhere else you need to be assertive. With my grandson's name. You can't be agreeing to any of those ridiculous names Julie came up with. Your list is much more reasonable. You've got to put your foot down on that one. You can't let your son become an object of ridicule on the playground."

Matt nodded numbly. He didn't really want his son to be named Atticus (after the _To Kill a Mockingbird_ character) or Ishmael (after the narrator of _Moby Dick_, which Julie had hated in high school but which had perversely become one of her favorite novels in college), or Sydney (after the moping, self-pitying Mr. Carton of _A Tale of Two Cities_), or, Darcy (which was too much a girl's name these days, Jane Austen's Mr. Darcy aside), or God forbid, Heathcliff. Matt didn't care about Emily Bronte. As far as he was concerned, Heathcliff was a cat in those old 80's cartoons he caught on Netflix when they couldn't afford cable. He wasn't religious, but he wanted his son to be named straight from the New Testament, because those were good, solid – above all NORMAL – names – you know, names like Stephen and Mark and John and Paul and…well…Matthew. What was wrong with Matthew, Junior anyway? Why was Julie so dead sent against having a _junior_?

Coach Taylor took his hand off Matt, who started walking. As Matt passed Julie, he said, as decisively as he could, "I'll take care of it." He thought he saw a bemused smile toying at the corner of Mrs. Taylor's lips as Coach sat back down next to her.

Matt swallowed as he neared the front desk. He _could_ be aggressive. He'd been a quarterback, right?

As his feet drew closer to the desk, he thought – what would Coach Taylor do?

The truth was, he had no idea what Coach Taylor would do in this situation. Coach had said to be aggressive, but this wasn't actually the football field. Matt knew what his father-in-law would do on the field. There'd be some yelling. A speech of some kind. But Matt kind of imagined that if Coach Taylor was walking to this particular desk, he would turn on the southern gentleman charm rather than be aggressive to get what he wanted. Of course, Matt didn't know how to do that either, because the southern gentleman charm wasn't all simply "yes, ma'am" and "no, sir." He was good enough at that. Unfortunately, though, there was also a certain self-confidence to that charm, which Coach Taylor seemed to have, but Matt didn't.

_Aggressive_, he told himself when he was three steps away. _Aggressive_.

How would the boyfriend of Julie's Aunt Shelley handle this situation? Now _that_ guy was aggressive. He'd come to Chicago with Shelley, to the chagrin of Coach Taylor, who wasn't sure about his Gracie Belle traipsing around with her aunt to begin with, but add her aunt's _boyfriend_ to the mix… ("I bet my dad went ballistic when that guy met them at the airport," Julie had told Matt.)

Shelley's boyfriend was named Ralph, but he insisted that everyone pronounce it "Ray-f," which Coach Taylor absolutely refused to do. Last night they'd all gone out to dinner and started with a drink order, except poor Julie, and of course Gracie, who had asked for Shirley Temples. When the drinks were slow in coming, Ralph had gotten up, literally vaulted over the bar, and started pulling the beers himself. When the bartender accosted him, Ralph said loudly, "Oh, I assumed this must be a self-serve joint, you were so damn slow." Now that was aggressive.

Matt now stood with his toes at the front desk. He steadied his nerves.

"May I help you?" the woman asked.

**[FNL]**

Matt slumped back into the waiting room chair across from his wife, who was still bent over the opposite row. However, now Mrs. Taylor was standing behind her and rubbing her back. Coach Taylor turned to Matt with eyes that said, "Welllll, son?"

"They said fifteen minutes," Matt mumbled, "It'll only be another fifteen minutes."

Julie looked up and glared at him. Mrs. Taylor shook her head. Then she looked down at the floor. "Eric, sugar," she said. "Go get Julie a bed. Her water just broke."


	22. Chapter 22

**Chapter Two**

Coach Taylor sat on a bench outside the delivery room. Technically he wasn't supposed to be there—he was supposed to be two halls away and out in the waiting room—but he just smiled at the nurses whenever they walked by, and if he was asked why he wasn't in the proper place, he'd say, "My apologies, ma'am, I didn't know I wasn't supposed to be here. See, my little girl is about to give birth to my grandson," and they would smile and leave him alone.

He was still paging through the _Sports Illustrated_ he'd plucked from the waiting room. This was his third time through the issue, and he knew it cover to cover now. Too bad it wasn't the swimsuit issue, not that he'd have dared to page through that in front of Tami and his daughter. He'd notice that, at home, whenever that particular issue did arrive with his own subscription, it tended to mysteriously disappear within twelve hours, occasionally even before he'd had a chance to see it.

He nearly dropped the magazine when he heard Julie's loud scream from within the delivery room, followed by Tami's even _louder_ scream, and her cry of, "My baby!"

A minute later, Tami was sliding on the bench beside him.

"What the hell happened?" he asked.

"Nothing. Just typical contraction-related pain."

"Well, yeah, sounded typical for Julie. Not so typical for you. What were you shouting about?"

"It was just hard seeing my baby in pain like that."

"So they kicked you out?"

"Well," she said, "Matt did."

Coach Taylor chuckled. "Thattta boy. If he can stand up to _you_, he'll grow a backbone yet."

Not that Matt hadn't had his occasional spurts of assertiveness, even with Eric himself, but, on the whole, Coach Taylor thought he tended to be a little timid. On the one hand, that meant Matt would never walk over Julie, and a father liked to know his daughter was safe from that. On the other hand, it also meant it might be too easy for Julie to walk over Matt, especially given the personality the girl had already inherited from her mother. Julie, like his own wife, Eric thought, needed someone who would push back from time to time. He loved Matt, but if the young man didn't shed a little bit more of his tentativeness, Coach Taylor could see him storing up secret resentments for years, and that was death to a marriage. Eric had shared all of these concerns with Tami, who had just laughed and said, "Not all girls marry their fathers. And thank God for that in my case. Besides, Matt's a lot more like you than you realize. In fact, you were just as deferential as he was when you were younger. See that word I chose, sugar? Deferential. Isn't that better than timid?" And Coach Taylor had said he did not defer to her opinion in the matter.

Now, Tami jerked her head toward him. "You say that like I'm the wicked witch of the west."

He closed his magazine and slid an arm around her shoulder. "You can be formidable, babe."

"But I can also be as sweet as molasses," she insisted.

"Yeah, when I need you to scrape up some boosters for me."

"Aren't I sweet to you, sugar?"

He didn't answer, but he kissed her head and breathed in. "Julie'll be a'ight," he reassured her.

They sat, backs to the wall, hearing the occasional angry scream-grunt. The door flew open and Matt darted out with a cup.

When a nurse in the hall said, "You can't be getting her water, you know, she can only have ice chips," Matt ducked his head and kept on walking.

He returned a couple of minutes later with a cup full of water and disappeared into the room.

Coach Taylor looked back at the close door. "If the nurse said ice chips, there must be a –"

"It's thirsty work!" Tami insisted. "They're Nazis about those damn ice chips. I wish you'd brought me water when I was in labor."

"Well then why didn't you tell me?"

"Well, with Gracie, because you weren't there until the very end."

He sighed. "Tami, babe, I tried. You have no idea how fast I was running. "

"I know. I know. Just drop it."

He peered down at her dubiously. "I didn't pick it up in the first place."

She patted his knee. "Sugar, let's not argue. We're both just a little tense right now."

He closed his eyes, sighed, and nodded.

"I should be in there with her," Tami said.

"In this situation," Eric told her, "you should do what Julie wants and needs. And if she needs you out here…"

"I can't believe they kicked me out."

"Hey, I'm out here."

"Completely different. You'd be mortified to be in there. I'm surprised I got you into the delivery room with _me_ for Julie."

"No man _really_ wants to see his wife in that situation."

"Why's that, sugar? Does it spoil your image of? It must, because I don't think you wanted sex for at least two whole _days_ after I gave birth."

"Hey, I was very patient," he insisted defensively." Even after you got the green light, I was still very patient."

"How magnanimous of you to wait until your wife was ready instead of just tossing her on the bed."

"I didn't just wait, I _wooed_. Fat lot of good it did."

"Well Matt wanted very much to be in that delivery room," she said.

"Matt wanted very much to support his wife. We husbands all want to support our wives. Doesn't mean– "

"- Oh, are you speaking for all of husbandkind now?" Tami's voice dripped with her trademark sarcasm.

"I'm—You know, it used to be men never went into the delivery room at all. My dad certainly was never in the delivery room with my mom."

"Well, your dad was never in _any_ room with your mom."

Eric nodded solemnly. His parents' marriage had been strained. They'd managed to stay together largely by avoiding each other and moving in their own separate worlds. That was why it was so important for Eric to show affection to Tami in front of the kids, no matter how many "Ewwwwwwwwws" his kisses elicited from Julie. That was a comfort he'd never had—the comfort of seeing his parents love on each other.

"I thought we weren't fighting," he said.

"This isn't fighting, hon," she said with an affectionate smile. "This is just us in neutral."

He smiled and leaned in for a kiss but didn't complete the play, because, suddenly, on the other side of the wall, the intermittent screaming stopped, and there was an eerie calm. Eric's arm stiffened around Tami's shoulders. "I don't hear any crying," he said.

**[FNL]**

Matt's lips curved when the baby first came out, all ugly and slimly and pink but his-his son. But then he realized the baby wasn't crying, and its skin was a little blue at the extremities, and suddenly the nurse and doctor were in a flurry of motion, grabbing the baby, taking it aside, probing and slapping and Matt didn't know what was going on, he only knew it wasn't crying, he only knew there was a look of terror on his young wife's face, he only knew his stomach felt like it had somehow dropped into itself, and that the seconds passed like minutes, until at last the baby's cry shattered the silence and the breath Matt had been holding came out in one long sigh of relief, and he was at Julie's side, kissing away the tears that had somehow fallen in the suspended moment.

The doctor and nurse hovered over baby boy Saracen for another ten minutes before bringing the infant to its mother. Julie cradled the little guy in her arms while Matt looked down on him with a broad grin spreading its way across his face.

"He got a seven on the Apgar," the nurse said. "That's passing, but we'll keep an eye on him. He just gave us a scare for a little bit there."

Matt nodded numbly and toyed with his son's little hands, looking at the infant's occasionally opening eyes with wonderment.


	23. Chapter 23

**Chapter Three**

Matt was sitting at the edge of the bed with his arm across the top of the pillow just above Julie's head, and his son was cradled in his young wife's arms, snuggled tight. Matt leaned down and kissed Julie tenderly. Baby Boy Saracen squirmed between his young parents, and Julie giggled.

Matt slid off the bed and sat in a nearby chair when Julie attempted to feed the baby for the first time. Matt looked away and ran a thumb across his eyes. "I feel like such a girl," he said. "I'm so emotional."

Julie laughed. "I think new dads are allowed to be emotional. Mine was when Gracie was born. Probably when I was born too, although I wasn't really of an age to notice that."

"It's hard to imagine my dad being emotional," Matt said, looking down at his shoes now.

"Maybe he would have been," Julie said softly, "if he'd had a chance to see his grandson."

Matt didn't respond to that. He just shoved his hands into the convenient pocket of his seasonally inappropriate sweatshirt. "I better call my mom and grandma," he muttered. "Tell them the baby's a'ight. If it's okay, I'll go call in the hall?"

Julie nodded. She knew his relationship with his mother, though improved, was still somewhat strained. They didn't talk often, except to discuss Matt's grandma's situation. "You can tell my folks they can come in when you come back."

**[FNL]**

There were squeals of excitement from Greatgrandma Sarcen, which had Matt's face breaking into a broad grin again, until she said, "Henry, you've got to name that boy Matthew. You've just got to."

"Uh…grandma. This is Matthew."

"Oh, silly, I know who you are! Now you and Shelby need to take good care of that new little one."

Matt leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes as as he heard his mom in the background talking to his grandmother. Her voice came on the phone. "Is everything all right with the baby."

"Yeah," he said dully. "8 pounds 2 ounces, 21 inches long. Is grandma getting worse? Is this sort of thing all the time now?"

"It is what it is, Matt. If you can, you should bring the baby down to see her sometime in the next six months. If Julie's okay with that. I know traveling that young-"

"—We will. I know she'll be okay with it. I want grandma to see - " He choked on his words.

"Congratulations, Matt. Did y'all pick a name yet?"

"Not yet. We're still…not yet."

**[FNL]**

Mrs. Taylor was all awwwwwww's and tears as she stood by the bedside. Coach Taylor was clenching his back teeth together to keep from being all awwwww's and tears.

The nurse informed Matt and Julie that someone would be coming by to gather the information for the birth certificate.

"Y'all need to choose a name," Coach Taylor told them as the nurse eased out of the room.

Julie sighed. "Yeah, we _know_ that, Dad. We can always put a placeholder though."

"Don't do that," Mrs. Taylor warned her. "Your father's birth certificate _still_ says Baby Boy Taylor."

A burst of laughter escaped Matt, who was sitting on the edge of the bed by Julie. "Seriously?"

Coach Taylor glowered. "My driver's license and everything else has Eric, but yeah, officially…the birth certificate…"

When he trailed off, Julie said, "I'm really leaning toward Darcy."

"That's a girl's name," Coach Taylor said. "I've had three Darcy's in Health and Driver's Ed. All girls."

"Not our discussion," Mrs. Taylor told him.

"Well, my second choice is still Heathcliff," Julie said.

"The cartoon cat?" Coach Taylor asked. Matt wanted to high five his father-in-law for having the same association with the name he did.

"No!" Julie insisted. "The literary character."

"You mean, the literary character who hung his girlfriend's dog from a tree and psychologically abused her as part of his plan of revenge for not getting his one true love?" Mrs. Taylor asked.

Matt didn't really remember _Wuthering Heights_—he'd kind of skimmed it in tenth grade—but he still wanted to pump his fist when his mother-in-law said that.

Coach Taylor echoed back Mrs. Taylor's words sarcastically: "Not our discussion."

Julie's face flushed with irritation.

"Sorry, Julie babe," Tami said. "You should name your son whatever you want. Whatever you two _agree_ on."

"Well…maybe Sydney is better," Julie said.

Mrs. Taylor didn't say anything. Coach Taylor appeared to be biting down on his tongue.

It was now or never. "I really want to go with Matthew junior," Matt said.

Julie rolled her eyes. "We talked about this! Juniors are so pretentious."

"Unlike literary characters?" Matt asked.

"I don't want a dynasty, Matt!"

"It's a junior, it's not a dynasty."

Coach and Mrs. Coach took a step backward as though to leave the room as the argument continued, but they paused when Matt grew grumpily silent. After a minute of listening to the baby gurgle and coo, Matt said, very quietly, "You know, I have another idea for a name."

"What?" Julie asked, a little testily.

"Henry," he said, his voice growing even quieter. "You know. After my Dad."

Julie took one of her hands off the baby and stroked his cheek. "Oh, Matt. I didn't even think of…oh." She kissed him softly. "Henry's a good name."

"It's also literary, Jules," Mrs. Taylor said. "Henry's in a Shakespeare play. Or two or three or four."

"Not our discussion," Coach Taylor reminded her. "Though if it was, I'd say I like Henry a'ight."

"Henry it is then," Julie said. "So what about a middle name? Henry Heathcliff sounds bad. Too many h's."

"Thank God," Coach Taylor said.

Tami shot him a stern glance.

"Henry Sydney sounds bad too," Julie admitted. "Henry Darcy Saracen. Maybe. Or Henry Atticus Saracen. I like that."

"What about Eric," Matt suggested. "After your dad. Since we're doing dads. Henry Eric. That sounds good."

Julie glared at Matt as though to say – how could you suggest that right in front of my dad? How can I say no now without insulting him?

"That's a'ight," Coach Taylor said. "Doesn't need to be both dads. Henry Atticus sounds…" He shook his head. He apparently couldn't bring himself to say it sounded good.

"We could always name him after Uncle Landry," Matt suggested.

"Who?" Coach Taylor asked.

Julie appeared to think a little more. "You know, I actually _do_ like Henry Eric. It sounds good. And H.E. Saracen totally sounds like a writer's name."

"Well it's important that he have a good writer's name," Matt said, beaming down at Julie, who had completed her first novel three weeks ago.

"It also makes a good artists name," she assured him.

"Or a good quarterback's name," Coach Taylor added.

**THE END?**

Note: This is where the creative juices end, but I thought it was over before, and I came back a month or so later…so, you never know. I'm calling it complete for now.


End file.
